The Reach of Arcturus
by Evident Disaster
Summary: Two worlds collide in an unexpected fashion, the United Earth Federation fleet of Arcturus arrives in an alternate Reality, where magic exists and the year is 1944. Sheppard, McKay and Carter must find a way back home, but while they're there, can they rise to the challenge of defending this version of Earth from the Neuroi along with the Witches? PS- Alternate Universe Stargate.
1. Chapter 1

Stargate ATL Strike Witches: The Reach of Arcturus

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AN: I thought this would be a funny and interesting crossover, throw in Sheppard, Mckay, and a whole shipload of technology from an alternate universe of Stargate and let the world of SW get rocked.

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CH1: The Flight of the Arcturus

2010/2/22

The galaxy is a vast place; you never know what might happen out there, so many wonders, so many adventures, and so many unbelievable sights which few people might get to see. Albeit the universe is filled with many wonders, it also happens to be filled with insurmountable amounts of dangers, such is the way things always are.

For Rodney McKay, space was filled with awesome sights, but of course that didn't mean there weren't some serious risks to travelling it, like aliens who could suck the life out of you with their hands, or parasitic aliens which can hijack your body. Oh there was also the various alien races and their politics, also the dark side of the various agencies on Earth who wanted to use the Stargate for their own purposes.

But for Rodney that wasn't going to be the case, not today anyways. He was enjoying a relaxing time trying to sort out the multi-dimensional folds of subspace to better regulate the flow of zero point energy for the new Arcturus class Cruiser, which had been constructed in the Pegasus galaxy. It was the first of a new line of ships for long range engagements, not to mention better in combat.

The Arcturus was built with the most advanced level of technology available, ready to use against anything, well nearly anything, the ship was just 1 of 3 which had been constructed, and the others were still at dry dock back on Lantea. The Arcturus he was currently on was the one which had been finished ahead of schedule.

It needed testing before it could be put into full use, not to mention, since it was the first ship launched of its class, it required a number of tweaks. The other reason why this ship class was called the Arcturus, an incident over 4 years ago with an Ancient Atlantean experiment which was supposed to draw zero point energy from the universe, but it overloaded and exploded.

Rodney wasn't too fond of remembering one of his greatest screw-ups but, this Arcturus was based on the same principle. The ship was created to draw zero point energy with its new zero point reactor, but not only that, this one had one additional upgrade. The multi-dimensional drive, a new form of FTL which would open wormholes for ships to pass through, but of course it was all theory.

The experimental drive was a very complicated piece of theoretical dimensional physics; meaning if something went horribly wrong, well there wasn't telling what'd happen. Rodney, pushed the thought of disaster away as he focused on the zero point generator, he tested the output of energy once more and doubled checked his findings.

"Ok ZPG is holding at 90%, looks like we're in business." Rodney announced over the ship's intercom.

He heard the gruff reply over the coms.  
"Good, we've just finished the diagnostics of the shields and weapon systems; they're all in the green. Also McKay, you might want to speed it up, Carter's set us up a meeting in the conference room, and you don't want to miss it again."

Rodney rolled his eyes as he replied.  
"Fine Sheppard, but do tell Carter that if she can do this any faster, then she can come down here and do it herself." McKay replied in a sardonic tone.

"I'll be sure to pass that on." The voice of Sheppard replied in an equally sardonic tone.

As the com line closed, McKay got back to work on the console controls for the generator, he wondered what they could possibly be meeting about, but of course he knew better than to miss a meeting. It usually involved details about dangerous assignments or some new anomaly they can all fly right into.

But that was just another day in the Pegasus galaxy, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And he knew that from experience alone, he'd been through the wringer a few times with luck in the past, though he didn't necessarily believe in luck, it was all about probability. He finished up his overview of the generator as his fellow subordinate Radek appeared.

"Oh good you've just made it back, I've got a meeting to attend to so just check on the usual output of the drive, and oh right, don't press anything with the drive." McKay said as he walked out of engineering.

Radek responded plainly. "Oh I'll be sure to not touch it like how you started to touch controls on an ancient bomb last time."

McKay replied in disdain. "Hey that wasn't my fault; no one ever said the bomb was a sensory activated field." He said before he turned the corner and out of sight.

Rodney straightened out his uniform as he walked through the corridors of the Arcturus, he wondered if they'd bother changing the lighting for the ship someday, it was always so dull, he wouldn't mind if they put in some high band UV lights, those tended to feel a lot better. As he walked through the grey metal corridors of the ship, he took a moment to reflect.

To clarify, McKay had a near brush with ascension, becoming an ethereal being of incredible powers and such; he did for about 5 minutes before he returned to the physical plane of existence thanks to the aid of some powerful friends. He took some time to make meditations and relax; of course he did this when he had time.

It was strange but a calming thing, of course terrible to do it during the middle of a warzone or emergency. He looked at himself, here he was 41 years old, and still good, albeit thanks to the aid of the UCAF giving him some regenerative treatments which reduced his aging process and reverted him a couple of years younger.

Brown short cut hair, calm deep brown eyes, and a really bad habit of being agitated easily, arrogant, condescending and overly confident, of course he had his reasons, being one of the smartest people alive in the human race, barring the Ancients of course. He was only matched by his sister, Samantha Carter, a few other people across Earth, and then there was Eli Wallace.

He still couldn't believe a 21 year old wash out from MIT managed to figure out a means of successfully generating zero point energy using a reactor as a containment device. He knew he'd run into some smarter people across the galaxy, but a washout from MIT pulling this out of his hat was definitely a new one.

Rodney calmed himself, no need to go all aggro before he even made it to the conference room, as he took some time to think it over; he figured the universe is full of people, probably a lot of smarter people. He might get along with a few of them, also taking credit as part of some greater project was usually a good idea.

Speaking of Eli, as McKay reached the end of the corridor which exited into a cross section in the ship, he turned into the nearby lift where he was greeted by the short curly haired late teenage boy who had a PSP in hand and playing avidly.  
"Hey there." Eli said as he played intently on the mini console.

"Hi." McKay replied awkwardly.

McKay never truly understood the point of playing games in this day and age, of course to be honest he wasn't much of a gamer to begin with, games and such depend on reaction, hand to eye coordination, or some sense of imagination, which he wasn't really such a big fan of. Eli on the other hand was creative and possessed a great sense of ingenuity.

"So, where're you off to?" McKay said as he pressed on the pad of the lift control.

"I'm heading off for the meeting." Eli muttered as he continued to play.

McKay was taken aback. "Wait why are you needed at the meeting?" He asked the gamer.

Eli shrugged as he continued to play. "I dunno, the Colonel wanted me at the meeting to brief me on some stuff regarding our next jump, I probably suspect it has something to do with the trans-dimensional drive enhancement I had you guys install." He replied as he jiggled around his PSP.

McKay was a little sceptical about why the new drive needed the game-boy's attention, but if Sam thought it was necessary then he couldn't overrule her decision as much as he would have liked to. McKay wasn't much of a fan of Eli's gaming habit, it seemed rather distracting, ok the kid managed to jump a ship from the inside of a planet, and maybe blow a star up.

But it didn't excuse his lax behaviour in all of this; he was still a member of the expedition, who also happened to be a bit better versed at multi-spatial physics than he was, and well a bit faster at doing things. But he was still older than Eli, and a lot more experienced, at least in some areas.

Of course holding this over Eli would just make him look like an ass in front of everyone else, so he didn't bother trying. As they reached deck 7 the doors opened up and let them out, Eli seemingly knew that this was the level to get off of even though he was still engrossed in his game, it was strange. Did the boy have a navigation app for his PSP?

The more McKay thought about it, the more it gave him a headache, he decided to leave the question as he and Eli turned the corner. McKay was greeted by the sight and sounds of a certain officer. "Oh Sheppard." He exclaimed as he greeted the specialist marine.

Sheppard who had been ahead of them turned about. "Hey McKay, Eli, what's going on?"

Before he could say anything Eli, paused his game and faced the colonel with a smiled.  
"Hey Sheppard, me and McKay were just heading to the meeting."

"That's what I was going to say." McKay threw Eli a look.

"Well since you two are here, any ideas what the meeting's going to be about?" Sheppard asked as he continued down the corridor.

McKay and Eli tagged behind him in tow, McKay began.  
"It could be anything at the moment; I wouldn't be surprised if Sam's calling us up because of how the ship's still not absolutely finished."

"Hey I doubt it. The Arcturus is fully functional, aside from the small issue of the multi-dimensional field drive. It should be at peak efficiency." Eli stated.

"Yes, but it's also because of that new drive you installed for the Arcturus that we're stuck out here in the middle of nowhere trying to get it ready for its formal launch." McKay quipped in response.

"Hey I'm not the one taking 4 hours to run 4 diagnostics at once, besides, since when have you cared about my projects? Mr I'm busy learning about the secrets of the whole freaking universe." Eli retorted.

"Will you two quit it already?" Sheppard interjected.

The two most brilliant members of the Pegasus Research Department dropped their argument and followed the Colonel to the conference room; it wasn't long till they were greeted by various members of the ship's crew and officers of each military division aboard the ship. The conference room, which was fairly spacious, was built with utility in mind.

It was an amphitheatre which was large enough to fit a C-130 Hercules inside and then some, the rows and rows of seats which were positioned in a fashion which wasn't claustrophobic. Down in the floor level of the conference room was a single set of chairs ringed around a large holographic display unit. The majority of the conference room chairs and tables remained empty, since this wasn't necessarily a full command briefing.

Down on the floor level were where everyone was gathered, Carter was just going over some Data-pads of whatever reports she was receiving still from across the Arcturus aside from that, she had most of her focus on matters currently occurring across the ship and well across the rest of the galaxy.

Ever since the Wraith Empress was killed things have been steadily going back to the way they were before, albeit the fact that the UEF United Earth Federation was still engaged in war with the remaining Goa'uld System Lords, Baal's last clones, the Nak'esh, and a handful of other troublesome species which seemed to have popped into existence since 12 years ago.

To currently explain the state of affairs of the United Earth Federation, the UEF has been around since the start of 2004, with the help of some extra-universal help from the UCAF, a faction from another universe which helped Stargate Command become as crucial in defending Earth and various other worlds from various threats.

The Lucien Alliance was one said threat until a few months ago when most of the Lucien Alliance Leaders were killed by the UEFF United Earth Federation Forces, under the command of Colonel Mitchell. The Lucien Alliance was responsible for the mass murder of millions throughout its brief rise to power; it held dozens of worlds until the UEF became cohesive enough to challenge their power.

Other factions such as alien races were becoming a more common sight thanks to the fall of the goa'uld empire, but that said, there was a sharp increase in more aggressive alien races. Since the fall of the goa'uld the Nak'esh and a few other races have been encroaching on neutral ground and attacking trading outposts across open space.

The UEF had made the decision to begin implementing patrol forces for each nation, country and etc. to begin large scale recruitment for the UEFF to help in securing the borders of the UEF from dangerous races which had come to rise. Carter who had been part of the SGC was also a leading member in the UEFF itself.

It was why she was caught up in all of the paperwork; she did technically help create the UEF and also help in expanding human knowledge of the universe. A colony here in the Pegasus galaxy was also named after her, her contributions to saving lives from the Wraith, Replicators, Collectors and the Daugh'ians made her a public figure amongst the inhabitants of the galaxy.

McKay grinned as he recalled the day he got a whole battleship named after him, of course Sheppard wasn't so please since McKay spent the whole week bragging about it. Sheppard then muttered about something as they reached the ground floor.  
"Looks like we've got Caldwell here." He nodded in the direction of the officer who had been assigned to the Pegasus expedition some years ago.

McKay turned his head to see the bald officer; Caldwell was seated on the other side of the table with a few other commanders from the various ships of the escort group assigned to the Arcturus. McKay hadn't seen the good old Colonel since their last little drop in a few months ago; well technically he wasn't a Colonel anymore.

McKay's thoughts were interrupted.  
"Okay people let's get this briefing underway." Sheppard announced as he took his seat on the 3rd arch table left of Caldwell.

Carter cleared her throat as she put down her data pad.  
"Very well, I've come to announce that the UEFF High Command has decided that a temporary ceasefire is being discussed between us and the Genii." She stated in a slightly agitated tone.

"What?" Sheppard exclaimed with a look of surprise.

"You've got to be kidding." McKay agreed.

"I wasn't anymore happy with it than you are, but since we've been at war with them for the past 5 years the UEG (United Earth Governments) aren't pleased with the way we've been having to put out spot fires since this war began. As much as we'd like to ensure that Kolya doesn't try another coup with the Pegasus Coalition Government, we cannot continue to expend resources at the moment." Carter explained.

"Because of that new expedition being planned by Dr Jackson?" Sheppard asked Sam.

Sam was a bit hesitant in replying but she nodded.  
"The UEFF has been trying to construct the new Avalon class Carrier for the better part of 4 years, the resources required to construct it have been taxing the UEF to continue manufacturing new ships and repairing our ships."

McKay decided to inquire.  
"Ok seriously Sam, why does Jackson even need a 7.2 kilometre warship anyway? I thought his pet project was supposed to relate to the Ancients most highly secured scientific project?"

"Well since you've asked so nicely McKay…" She gave him a slightly disapproving look, which he knew immediately she didn't like him poking at Daniel over his work.  
"The Avalon's supposed to be a large scale transportation ship for extended trip's across the universe, particularly, the ship is meant to reach the Antares galaxy within a week. And carry enough personnel and equipment and resources for the expedition, since Laputa is supposed to be a dozen times the size of Atlantis, not to mention requires supposedly a lot more resources to maintain."

"Now that's been squared away, I can guess we're going to be standing down our alert status along the galactic borders?" Caldwell inquired.

Carter nodded. "Pretty much, we can't afford to maintain as many ships out in the Pegasus galaxy at the moment, the UEFF had decided to reduce our current forces by a third for the next year." Carter stated before sighing, her past 3 years as the military commander of the Pegasus Expedition had been wearing her down considerably.

Sheppard palmed his face.  
"We haven't even dealt with the current problem of Wraith remnants still around the galaxy; we can't possibly expect to eliminate the last loyalist Wraith factions without substantial forces." He said in a rather dispassionate fashion.

Carter empathised with him. "I know, but the UEF believes that we can hold with what we have, and if necessary they'll launch the reserve fleets from around New Melbourne and direct them here." She tried to reassure the Colonel.

Sheppard rolled his neck back and just decided to accept that the UEF Government is probably up to its neck dealing with political issues regarding more local problems like the goa'uld system lords which still continued to plague local shipping routes with hit and run attacks. Not to mention one survivor of the Lucien Alliance, a commander named Kiva whose father was executed for war crimes.

The Lucien Alliance holdout was determined to inflict as much damage upon Earth as possible and had been held responsible for recent terrorist attacks on shipyards in 3 sectors of space, the need of forces to go and hunt her down have been trying. It was doubtful this problem would be resolved soon, which was going to be more problematic for the Pegasus expedition.

"So aside from the usual crap we have to go through, is there any good news from the UEF High Com?" Sheppard asked.

Sam pulled out a data pad and said. "Well there are a couple of good things to say about today."

"What would be the first?" McKay inquired.

"The first is that we have been given advanced resources for creating the Arcturus class, General O'Neil came through for us in requesting the UEF take the situation here more seriously." Carter began.

"Which means he wants to even out the little hiccup the UEG made for us?" McKay deadpanned.

Carter threw him another glare which he dropped the subject. Carter explained clearly.  
"The Arcturus is going ahead thanks to the urgency of the new Expedition, not to mention the UEF is somewhat uncertain to do with the situation here in Pegasus."

"Well it's expected, they aren't technically here doing this themselves, and I probably doubt they'd really like to try." Caldwell stated.

"Bureaucracy at its finest." McKay added dispassionately.

"Well at least we got the green light for the Arcturus or we'd be waiting another 8 months to get a reply from the UEF High Command." Eli stated optimistically as he changed the game on his PSP.

"So what's the last bit of good news before the universe smacks us in the face?" Sheppard asked with a light yawn.

Carter pulled it up on her data pad and stated.  
"To Colonel Samantha Carter, current commander of the United Earth Federation Forces stationed within the Pegasus galaxy, it is my distinguished honour to announce your promotion to Brigadier General of the United Earth Federation Forces effective immediately. Your years in service to Earth and its colonies are greatly recognised by all members of the UEF and believe your distinguished service is worth merit.  
Signed Chairman of the United Earth Federation, Henry Hayes.

Note that there will be a formal ceremony on Earth on the 15/4." Carter finished.

The conference room was suddenly dead silent from the announcement, aside from Eli who was still playing on his PSP, who after a moment said.  
"Oh congrats Sam, it's about time they made you a general." He said whilst engrossed in playing Devil May Cry.

Samantha was taken aback by the sudden announcement as well, she didn't expect that they'd promote her after all this time; it was a refreshing change of pace. Sheppard broke out of his surprise and added. "Well congrats General Carter." He said thoughtfully.

Caldwell seemed a little bit more surprised than the rest of them, but also added his approval.  
"It's about time, though I have to say their timing is somewhat tedious, if I do say so ma'am." He said in respects to her new rank.

Rodney was also approving, though he agreed.  
"This seems kinda convenient; as soon as they reduce our military presence they make you brigadier general, am I the only one a little suspicious by all of this?" Rodney stated.

"No, but it's better than nothing, I'm assuming that this is probably going to be a formality, Hayes is going up against some tough opposition in terms of his position back on Earth, the UEF has plenty of people who'd want to put someone else in power than him." Carter stated as she closed the data pad.

"Great more politics, as if our little escapade with the Trust didn't scare those idiots back on Earth." Sheppard muttered as he shook his head.

"A great recipe for disaster, but I think it's still worth the promotion, I'm sure General O'Neill voiced his approval as well, as much as he could really say." Eli said as he continued to play only glancing up as he finished his sentence.

"Well the good thing about all of this is that Carter can't get overruled by the other officers in Pegasus now, Petrukov himself will undoubtedly be annoyed at this. But better we have him angry at her than try and overrule another decision like in 2008." Sheppard stated in his observation.

"So if that's all of the good news, anything else we'd need to know?" McKay inquired as he wrote down some notes of what to begin investigating.

"Nothing else, Atlantis forwarded an update on the expansion project to the mainland was going well, they've almost got Newport ready for the next colonists inbound from Earth. The update with Todd, he's gotten out of that bind back on VD-093, and Ronon along with Teyla have begun to open up trade with the Avarians, they'll be back next week." She finished up on the reports.

"Well looks like we won't be having any new disaster any time soon, which is usually a bad omen." McKay stated.

"Why is that?" Eli inquired.

"Because every time we get a short break somewhere in the galaxy something really bad tends to happen." McKay stated.

It was then the conference room's intercom came active.  
"Uh ma'am, this is the Ironclad-12-34 we've got an unknown contact approaching on the other side of the system, we're cannot make a confirmation, they parked themselves right into the atmosphere of the local gas giant." The commander of the Ironclad stated.

Everyone got out of their seats to head over to the main bridge, Carter replied over the com.  
"Keep an eye on them, and don't move to ID, if they make a move in our direction pull back."

"Understood ma'am." The commander replied.

"So I'm guessing that this is probably that slightly bigger problem?" Eli asked McKay.

"Probably." McKay stated as they rushed up the stairs to the exit.

Sheppard was already ahead, his augmented body took him 4 paces ahead of everyone else. Officers, crewmen and other such individuals were rushing to their stations, undoubtedly preparing for whatever was going on. Caldwell broke off at the lift intending to get to the transporters; he had to get to his cruiser which was parked alongside the Arcturus.

As the rest of them reached the bridge, they were greeted by Sam's favoured pupil and one day successor, Commander Jennifer Hale. "Ma'am." She greeted the new General.

"What's the situation?" Carter inquired.

Hale brought up a map of the solar system on a holographic display unit near the command/control section of the bridge; it highlighted the third planet in the system.  
"We've got one ship, size is consistent with a Wraith Cruiser, its currently holding position within the gas giant's atmosphere."

"Great, Wraith again, the fun just never ends with those guys." Sheppard muttered as he looked over the data himself.

McKay checked the sensor logs as well; Eli who put his PSP away grabbed a computer tablet and was going through the secondary sensor relays in some attempt to get a better resolution on the vessel.  
Carter inquired. "Any signs of any other Wraith vessels in the region?"

McKay checked the long range sensors.  
"Nothing in the hyperspace emissions, they're pretty much empty."

"Isn't the nearest Hive fleet over a week away from here?" Sheppard asked them aloud.

"Yeah that is the case, but that doesn't mean the Wraith don't send in some advanced scout ships to check out star systems." McKay stated as he doubled over the sensors.

It was Eli who discovered something.  
"Hey guys, I'm getting faint electromagnetic emissions coming from the second planet in the system, I'm reading a large dispersal pattern changing at a rate of 0.3 seconds." He stated as he looked over the sensors.

"Hale what's the status of the fleet's shields?" Carter asked the commander.

Hale stated in a calm disciplined reply.  
"We have full shield functions, though Captain Caldwell states the Daedalus is having some minor issues with its lower shield emitters, he's got his engineering teems working on it."

"Good, McKay what's the status of our hyperdrive?" Carter asked the Canadian science officer.

"Well I've got the secondary hyperdrive working; we were still in the midst of fixing the primary hyperdrive to the ZPG, it's going to take at least another half an hour." He replied as he changed over from the bridge console to a mobile tablet.

"Uh, guys, I think we have a problem." Eli stated as he looked over another sensor anomaly.

"What is it?" Carter asked the young prodigy.

The alarms started sounding; the voice of the ship's AI Amanda appeared.  
"Sorry for not appearing sooner, I finished running full diagnostics on the status of our primary and secondary systems; I did a double over on our sensor logs and found three approaching shadows approximately aft of the fleet." The AI stated.

McKay was a little startled at the sight of the AI, he hadn't gotten used to Amanda since the whole incident with being trapped in a chamber with a crazy malfunctioning android.  
"Seriously couldn't you just materialise on the holo-projector?" He asked in a slightly annoyed tone.

"As much as I'd like to argue the point of my arrival, we do have more pressing concerns." Amanda stated.

Eli agreed. "Those ships look really damn familiar."

It was then Amanda exclaimed. "Ships have begun charging high energy impulse weapons; energy signatures are consistent with Wraith Stalkers."

"Oh that's not good." Sheppard stated.

"Incoming volley." Hale said as she rushed down to the CIC below them.

The ship shuddered slightly as the Wraith Stalkers fired their lances.  
"Energy impulse was directed exactly aft of our shields, we've received a high end energy burst, receiving overall capacity overload near junctions 3-21-11."

"What was their target?" Carter inquired.

"They hit our hyperdrives, those energy bursts were directed at our shield harmonics. They bypassed our shields and overloaded the control junction, we've lost hyperdive capability." McKay said in alarm as he checked over the damage report.

"Ma'am Wraith vessels have begun moving out of their positions; I count a total of 9 Wraith vessels." Hale stated as she took command through the CIC.

"Incoming communication from the Daedalus." A com officer stated.

"This is Carter." Sam stated over the com.

"General, we've powered up weapons and are moving to a defensive position aft of the Arcturus, what's your status?" Caldwell inquired.

"We've sustained energy damage directed at our Hypderdrive; we've lost FTL capability at the moment, McKay's working on it, but we're counting 9 Wraith ships on approach along with Stalkers, you already know what to do, cover us for the moment, we're going to need to get the Hyperdive back online." Carter ordered.

"Very well we'll hold our position aft." Caldwell stated.

Amanda then announced with a slightly tuneful tone.  
"General Carter, I have detected additional Wraith ships on approach."

"I thought you said there weren't any other ships in reach?" Sheppard asked with a questioning look at McKay.

"I did, unless they masked their FTL signatures…" He then realised something. "Just like the Empress did back in 09."

"Oh that can't be good." Eli stated as he rushed off to the navigational interface on the right side of the bridge, technicians were going about trying to map the approach.

"Think it's a remnant faction of the Empress?" Sheppard asked.

"Very likely, looks like they haven't lost their touch." Carter replied as she looked over the sensor ghosts on approach.

Eli managed to discern the approaching vessels approaching.  
"We've got a Hive Dreadnought and what looks like 5 cruisers, and a whole mess of smaller ships."

"Just great, looks like they were waiting for us." McKay stated as the other Wraith vessels began to close in around their fleet.

"I doubt it McKay, if anything their Stalkers probably tracked us through subspace and traced us right here, probably took the chance to attack while we were vulnerable." Eli stated.

"Makes sense." Sheppard agreed.

"Well we better start figuring out a means of getting out of here. I don't think even Arcturus was built to fight that many Wraith ships especially a dreadnought." Carter stated.

"I'm working on it." McKay stated.

Amanda thoughtfully stated. "At the best possible time we cannot fix the hyperdrive in time, I estimate that the Wraith fleet will be right on top of us within the next 5 minutes, and if calculations are correct, the Dreadnought alone will effectively reduce our shields to minimal levels through sustained bombardment." The AI stated clearly.

"Any good news?" Sheppard asked them openly.

"I've got nothing, it'll take another 20 minutes for us to get the secondary hyperdrive fixed again and the primary is still not mounted with the ZPG, I can get started but that'll take at least another 30 minutes to get running." McKay said before adding. "That's assuming those Stalkers or any more like them don't overwhelm our shield emitters and his us with another pulse blast, or our drive is as good as dead." He stated as he looked over the damage of the main hyperdrive.

"Can we send a message to Atlantis?" Carter asked.

"Not possible, they've flooded the system in subspace scramblers; I doubt anyone within range of us will be able to help though." McKay said as he began to bypass damaged sections of the junction from the control console.

"Ma'am Wraith fleet is emerging from hyperspace off our port bow." The helmsmen stated.

They all turned to face the viewscreen as the Wraith fleet came out of FTL; it was truly a frightening sight for those who hadn't faced the Wraith in the past. The size of the Wraith forces hadn't truly diminished since the start of the war years ago. Massive vessels kilometres in size appeared, their insect like hull armour gleamed dimly in the open void.

The outer layer of the hull bristled with weapon arrays and a number of sensory nodes designed to track and destroy ships which dared to face the Wraith ships. But the Dreadnought was the most daunting of all; its size was about 5 times the size of Atlantis, capable of carrying hundreds of thousands of warriors.

It was shaped into 9 great spines, with the middle being shaped like a hook which arched downwards, its length was lifelike and organic in design, crafted to savagely rip into enemy vessels without remorse. The dozens of smaller ships around it were immaculate in comparison to the capital ship.

"That's not good." Sheppard stated in earnest.

"No that isn't." McKay agreed.

Amanda then stated. "Enemy capital ship has charged weapons and is firing. Brace for impact."

The Arcturus violently shook as dozens of energy blasts began to slam into the outer shields. Carter was almost knocked off balance, but realigned herself and took to the bridge command chair. "Amanda what's the status on our weapon arrays?"

"We have all primary weapons active; I have already begun to return fire, however the Wraith Dreadnought is dispersing and absorbing the impacts fairly consistently." Amanda stated in a matter of fact tone as she worked to overcome the Wraith's larger capital vessel.

"McKay can you get our FTL back online even for a brief moment?" Carter asked.

McKay ran through the controls and functions for the FTL and replied in a rather agitated fashion.  
"Not fast enough, calculating and reconstructing the main drive matrix isn't something I can do on a whim here."

"But can we go into FTL even for a short jump? We don't need the absolute 100% on the drives; just give me anything to work with here." Carter asked him.

Eli and McKay took a few moments to run through a couple of simulated short jumps. McKay found nothing. "I can't the drive wouldn't get us as far as the outskirts of the system and that's assuming it doesn't overload and send us into oblivion…" He said as he tried to reconfigure the controls.

"There's just not enough power being redirected to the control matrix to allow a stable FTL jump." Eli said aloud.

McKay added. "Exactly meaning any jump we make would either just end in failure or we all die in the blink of an eye."

"Yes, but you're not adding one factor." Eli stated as he looked over the controls for the multi-dimensional drive. "We can channel the ZPG and use the multi-dimensional drive to channel power right into the control matrix that should give us a short burst, though where we'd end up is probably going to depend on how long the jump is."

McKay exclaimed in response. "No it doesn't we don't have any idea what'll happen if we plug the MDD right into the control matrix, sure we have a 10 percent chance of making a successful jump anywhere, but we have a 60 percent chance of unknown variables." He stated in response.

"Better than being ripped to pieces by Wraith." Sheppard stated as he looked over the battle report filing in.

"General, Captain Caldwell is on the line." The com officer stated.

"Patch him through." Carter acknowledged.

The familiar voice of the Captain came through albeit tensely.  
"General we've done all we could, we've received damage to our hyperdrive, secondary shield arrays are down and we have breaches on 3 decks, primary armaments are holding up, but not for much longer if these Stalkers keep pounding us like this."

The sounds of battle continued to come through on Calwell's end, Carter knew that this was not going to end well either way. "Understood Captain, we're exploring our options right now, we've narrowed down our decision, hold on for a bit longer."

"Understood ma'am." Caldwell stated as he got back to the fight.

Hale who had been busy trying to coordinate the fleet came over the CIC com.  
"Ma'am, I've given it some thought and I suggest we follow along with Eli's plan, we cannot maintain this position for much longer. The Ulysses and Yamato have been both forced back to our perimeter for shield recovery, there are still too many Wraith vessels for us to handle, strategically this is not a matter of holding on much longer." Jennifer stated in a meticulous fashion.

Carter asked Sheppard. "What do you think?"

Sheppard looked around from the display on the bridge and stated. "Can't hurt us anymore than sticking around ma'am."

Carter came down to the decision.  
"Alright, we're going with Eli's plan." She said aloud.

"Jennifer order all ships to close formation around the Arcturus, when we jump we'll pull the fleet through." She ordered the commander.

Jennifer understood and began to relay orders to the fleet. "All ships close formation prepare for mass FTL jump."

"Eli how much time do you need?" Carter asked the young prodigy.

Eli gave her a slightly strained look as he calculated the timing.  
"About another couple of minutes but I'll probably have to go and manually link the MDD to the hyperdrive." He replied.

"Okay, get going." Carter said before looking at McKay. "You go as well, try and hurry this up the Arcturus can't withstand a prolonged sustained bombardment."

"Okay, but if anything goes wrong it's not my problem." McKay said as he followed after Eli.

The ship shuddered once more as heavy particle beams from the Wraith ships continued to pound away from the outside. Carter hoped that this was worth the gamble, Sheppard who had been eagerly looking over the engagement from a display asked Carter.  
"You know if this doesn't work…"

"I know, but better we try something, I have my faith in Eli and McKay they haven't let us down in the past." Carter stated.

"Well aside from McKay blowing up a whole star system and Eli who managed to cause everyone to go invisible last time." Sheppard added thoughtfully.

"Right aside from those things, I'm fairly confident they wouldn't cause any more trouble especially now." Carter tried to reassure him as much as herself.

Outside of the ships beams from the various plasma beam cannons continued to fire out directed energy blasts against the Wraith ships continuing to assault the human ships. Each beam was substantially more powerful than Wraith weapons, though they lacked in volume of fire which the Wraith had plenty of.

This engagement was merely to wither down the defences to close distance and board the human fleet. Of course that was assuming they didn't just scuttle the ships rather than let them fall into the hands of the Wraith. Down in engineering, McKay and Eli worked away linking the FTL drive directly into the MDD.

It wasn't long before they had jury rigged the machines together, though the unpredictability of the two machines working together was problematic at best. Eli called over the com.  
"General we're ready to activate the drive, though I'm not sure what'll happen as soon as we activate it."

"Right, we've gathered the fleet into the range of our FTL that should be enough. On my order execute the jump." Carter stated.

Eli and McKay stood together in engineering, with Radek and the other various members of the technical crew working around trying to make sure everything was in working order.  
"Okay in 3, 2, 1…" Carter counted down.

"Activating MDD." Eli said aptly before pressing the button on the console.

Once the drive was active the ship began to shudder, at first subtly and then it increased. The fleet around the Arcturus was engulfed in what could be described as a bubble of light, all-encompassing, the battle between the humans and the Wraith suddenly stopped as the brightness eclipsed everything.

On the bridge Carter braced herself in the command chair while Sheppard had magnetised his shoes to the deck of the ship and held onto the display table waiting for what was to come. What should have been a simple jump had suddenly gotten much more interesting. After this point everyone passed out.

XXXXX

One hour later…

McKay heard the distinct tinnitus ringing away as he awoke; he had been through reality jumps before, but multi-dimensional jumps? Ok that was new. He managed to get onto his feet as others did likewise, of course it seemed most of everyone else was already up. "Hey guys, I feel like someone took a sledgehammer to my head." He groaned.

Eli who had stumbled away from the console and was picking himself up from the ground stated. "Likewise."

Radek who was busy checking over the systems across the ship said.  
"McKay we've made the jump I think."

"What do you mean you think?" McKay shouted as he checked the console in front of him.

Eli got back over to their console as the intercom came to life.  
"This is Carter; give a full status report McKay."

McKay's transponder was still working for him to reply.  
"We've got about no discernible signs of damage on the ship, though our shields look a little depleted, I can say is that the navigational systems are working just fine…" He paused as he noticed something profoundly wrong.

"Uh okay, that doesn't look right." Eli said as he peered over McKay shoulder.

"What is it?" Carter inquired.

"Well from what the navigational computers indicate, we haven't moved at all." Eli said as he double checked the navigational records.

Sheppard came over the line and said. "Uh McKay you know that whole bright flash of light thing kind of felt familiar." Sheppard stated in a rather concerned tone.

"Yes I noticed it as well, but we channelled it right into the FTL drive, it's not like we used a subspace capacitor like those other idiots did." McKay said in response.

"What's going on?" Carter inquired.

Eli knew what this was all about; he was the one who dealt with this problem in the past.  
"McKay and I believe we might have accidently jumped into an alternate reality again."

There was a slight pause before Sheppard who had been listening said.  
"McKay, you'd better be joking." The colonel said in a slightly annoyed tone.

"Okay let's not jump the gun just yet, we haven't verified anything." McKay tried to defend himself. "Eli was the one who proposed this plan, and I simply went along with it."

Eli then said. "Well it was a calculated risk, besides if anything at least we're out of the boiler."

"Yeah but we could have just jumped into the frying pan." Sheppard muttered.

Samantha who had been thinking over the situation wasn't so familiar about how inter-reality travel worked, only by so much could be assumed not much was put into actual practical application of dimension jumping. She then recalled.  
"McKay, didn't you and Eli both work on the alternate reality Daedalus when it arrived over Atlantis last time? I recall you managed to get it to send you back."

Eli who was busy checking over the recorded dimensional jump then said.  
"I think that might be a problem."

"What's wrong?" Sam inquired.

McKay checked over the logs and he compared it to their records on the Daedalus from the alternate reality. "You've got to be kidding me." McKay said as he checked over the comparison.

"What is it McKay?" Sheppard said in a demanding tone.

"We-." Eli was cut off as McKay said.  
"We've compared our data on the alternate reality Daedalus and our jump, they don't match up."

"Why what's different than before?" Sheppard asked.

Eli took over to explain. "The drive on the alternate reality Daedalus had a smaller drive which didn't link itself into the hyperdrive, meaning the jump was usually a systemic one, what we just experienced was more like a blind jump through subspace, we could have ended up anywhere."

Sheppard then asked. "Why not just flip the drive back in reverse like last time?"

Sam finally got what had happened and said.  
"It's not possible because we don't know where we just jumped to, it's like a point of origin to destination."

"And we didn't input our destination." McKay said in a rather panicked tone.

Eli then interjected. "You know you really need to calm down McKay, we can make it back, it's just really figuring out how."

McKay snapped. "Oh easy for you to say Mr Optimistic I'm a boy genius, we've got no way to determine our point of origin from our jump, for all we know this reality could have flying cars and penguins for people."

"That'd sound weirdly interesting." Sheppard added thoughtfully.

"Uh, okay back to our primary cause for concern. Where are we right now?" Samantha asked.

The two physicists looked around before Amanda came over the intercom.  
"Ma'am I have just completed overall system repairs, no critical systems have been compromised and I have had the opportunity to use our stellar cartographer to compare stellar locations within the surrounding space."

"And where exactly did we end up?" Sheppard inquired as he prepared for the worst.

Amanda, who had been based off Amanda Perry of the UEF Scientific Research Department in Bathurst Australia, chimed in a surprised tone.  
"We have arrived approximately within 5 parsecs of the Sol System."

"5 parsecs of Earth? How's that possible? I thought the reality jumps limit us to exactly where we are in space. It shouldn't have moved us." Sam said aloud.

Jennifer who had been in the CIC for the majority of the conversation added her hypothesis.  
"We were linked to the hyperdrive when we made the dimensional jump, for all we know it might have sent us anywhere in space, we're lucky we just ended up so close to this reality's version of Earth."

"True, but we don't know what's going on in this reality, for all we know Earth doesn't even exist." McKay stated.

"Which would be bad, since we don't know how long we're going to be stuck here. And a nice place to sit down and figure out a means to getting back to our reality would be preferable." Sheppard suggested.

"Agreed, of course if this Earth is habited, we may need to be careful, we don't exactly know where we've ended up, and we don't need to cause an incident." Sam advised.

Amanda interjected in her usual passive tone.  
"Ma'am may I suggest we repair the hyperdrive while someone is sent to scout out this reality's Earth? I have also Captain Caldwell on the other line; he hasn't been entirely informed on the current situation."

Carter understood. "Ok, I'll speak to Caldwell, Jennifer get the fleet into a defensive perimeter, stand down alert across the fleet. Amanda who do you need to go and begin repairs on our secondary systems?"

Amanda replied curtly. "I shall require Dr Eli to help in repairs to the crystal arrays located near the aft junctions; I do not require Dr McKay's assistance any time soon." She smiled as McKay interjected.  
"Hey I can be just as useful." He said in a tone of disdain for the sly remark.

Sheppard decided to jump in.  
"I'm going to scout out Sol, just make sure we're not going to impose on any business going on there."

Sam asked. "Do you want to take a team with you and a Jumper?"

Sheppard replied curtly. "Don't plan on taking a team for this one, besides Jumpers aren't really that hard to see especially when coming out of hyperspace, I'm going to take my Kestrel for a quick trip." He said as he made his way down to the hangar.

"I know you have authority to take individual action since the UEFF recognised you as a separate division of the military, but you still report to me. Before you do anything rash, contact me first before going ahead." She warned the Colonel.

"Understood, and don't worry since when do I start trouble?" He asked her in a mocking tone.

McKay knew immediately what he'd think but held down his satire response. As Sheppard headed down, the rest of the crew got back to what they needed to do. It was going to be a long day.

XXXXX

Location: UEFF Arcturus- Hangar 15-A

Sheppard reached the changing rooms before going into the hangar, he knew that it was best to be suited for the occasion; he entered into the pristine clean white gun metal room and stepped into a cubicle marked with his name. As he stepped in, he activated a holographic display on one side of the cubicle which brought up his gear selection.

He selected his space flight gear with atmospheric add-ons; he knew that if the alternate Earth was habitable it was best to be prepared for a short trip through the atmosphere. As the selection was completed, the cubicle began to hum, a section of the cubicle was highlighted and indicated in a diagram to stretch his arms and legs out so it could attach the gear.

He complied with a deep breath and closed his eyes as the cubicle suddenly glowed brightly; he knew the process the machine was molecularly forming his gear over his body. It didn't take any longer than a minute before he felt the weight of his gear weighing down on his body. He opened his eyes and the lighting returned to normal.

The panel then said in bold words [Process Complete], he stepped out of the cubicle and checked over his suit, making sure everything was in place; he turned to face a nearby mirror which stood at the end of the room and did a quick look over. His matte black and red armour dully shone in the lighting, he got a good look at his headgear, and then he made his way out.

He opened the doors and entered into the hangar bay where his fighter was being stored, technicians rushed around to tend to hundreds of vehicles and crafts, but they dared not touch the Kestrel Sheppard owned unless he had authorised them to do so. Sheppard's bird was a Kestrel FV-105 series multi-role fighter; it was constructed 5 years ago in response to the danger of attack on Earth from the remaining System Lords.

The Kestrel is a 27.4m long fighter, its wings were switchblade like which tucked into the sides of the fighter to allow compact storage, it was built with VTOL capabilities and an anti-gravity generator to enable quick deployment even on the ground. The Kestrel was constructed using various materials, from trinium, tritanium, carbon plates and a number of incredibly sturdy and lightweight materials.

The Kestrel features various upgrades from its cousin fighters the FX-301, 02, 03 and the more recent 322. The Kestrel was integrated with energy shields, polarised armour, internal honeycomb construction, making the Kestrel the most advanced fighter created to date. One of the more distinguishable features of the Kestrel is the ability to mount additional equipment; such has 180mm rail guns, a single ARC-V15 energy lance and a number of heavy weapons.

The fighter was developed to launch long distance assaults on ships, bases, outposts. But it also acted as a scouting vessel for fleets, and also performed pre-emptive strikes on high valued targets. Thus the Kestrel is one of the foremost advanced and dangerous of its class, being able to function in all sorts of environments against usually very high odds.

Sheppard loved his thanks to all of the upgrades and additions he had made to it over the years. His Kestrel could be mounted with his own assortment of weapons, including an external booster frame, something the UCAF had given to the UEF in its fight against the Wraith's superior numbers. There was also the fact that his own fighter had been tailored to his own needs.

A control interface, stealth field projectors, an emergency mini-transporter in the event the fighter is either destroyed or suffers critical damage. Then there were the other additions made by him, a storage locker for weapons and equipment, ion fusion cells for his gear in the event he needed to repair something, and also the nice leather chair he added in for his cockpit.

He stepped up the side step ladder and into the cockpit, he found it rather comfortable to be back in the pilot seat again of the Kestrel, it had been a long month since he had the chance to pilot his fighter. Combat was becoming sporadic back in Pegasus; it was kind of boring now that most of the Wraith were digging in for the long haul.

As he interfaced with his fighter, he was greeted by one of the engineers from the crew who was clearing the way for him to launch. Sheppard identified the engineer as a Vaunian, his white pale hair and yellow/gold tinted eyes gave it away pretty easily since Vaunians were the only ones to have this particular trait.

Once the engineer had completed his check, he got onto a console and activated a crane to move Sheppard Kestrel right to the launching catapult. Sheppard waved the engineer off as he locked the flight gear to the catapult. He linked his com set to the ship and called to the bridge.  
"Alright I've finished my pre-flight; I'm ready to take my bird out."

Carter replied over the com.  
"Understood Sheppard, but remember you have 24 hours to report or we'll send someone to check in on you, for now we're holding here. Check in at least every hour or so, or when you reach your destination."

"Understood ma'am." Sheppard said as he prepared to launch.

In front of him he watched as the hangar bay doors opened, the containment fields held the atmosphere inside and let fighters pass through. As the catapult finished charging, Sheppard indicated for launch. "This is Nova-1 heading out." He said as he hit the ignition for the engines.

His sublight came to life and shot the Kestrel forwards, the gees he should have been pulling were absent as he accelerated into open space, he could see the stars open up to him, all shone so brightly. He was glad something's in the universe never changed. He grasped the controls and navigated his fighter above the Arcturus.

As he prepared for his jump to hyperspace, he took a moment to look over the Arcturus itself. The Arcturus was as impressive as any other vessel in the UEF fleet, albeit this was essentially the second largest vessel in Earth's fleet. 3.6km in length, and nearly a kilometre in height, not to mention wide enough to fit a few warships in between, the Arcturus was truly a sight for sore eyes.

Arcturus was created using advanced materials and blueprints of Ancient warships, all obtained on an abandoned Ancient outpost some light years on the edge of the galaxy. The ship was created from a number of new techniques in ship construction all aimed to making highly durable warships to fend off future assaults on Earth and to defend against more hostile enemies.

Sheppard kept in view the fleet, consisting of a dozen warships of varying sizes, he loved how the designs they started out with were horribly boxy and bulky and now they were just boxy and streamlined. He watched as he passed the Daedalus' aft, he admitted, the Daedalus' design was a lot smoother than the other ships created.

As the Kestrel reached the designated jump point, he input the location of Sol and then activated the hyperdrive, in a flash the event horizon of a formed within a few meters of the Kestrel. Sheppard was pulled through hyperspace, he was greeted by the brilliance of light which was hyperspace, and he estimated the jump would take about a couple of minutes.

The UEFF had equipped every ship with Asgard upgraded hyperdrives which could easily make a jump across a hundred thousand light years in just under a day. It was pretty useful having advanced alien allies to help things along, as well as having friends who could upgrade a lot of these things as well.

His Kestrel was built with an enhanced hyperdrive, capable of flying faster than the standard UEFF hyperdrive; of course he paid for the modifications since it wasn't technically part of the UEFF's sanctioned upgrades. Sheppard spent the good part of the couple of minutes going over his own thoughts.

'Over 6 years in the service and not a penny for his pension ironically, since the UEF had changed the economic situation a few years ago and now there's not technical currency in existence. Well at least they cover healthcare.' He thought to himself.

As his Kestrel reached its destination, he grasped the controls and pulled down on the control lever and a pulled it back; he activated the neural interface and decelerated the fighter. Within moments his fighter pulled back into real space, his view passed from the vibrant lights of hyperspace to open space.

He could see the stars around him, he activated the control interface to map out the star system, and he was a little surprised to see that everything was practically identical. As his fighter turned about he was greeted by a welcoming sight, the big blue sphere he called home, of course this wasn't his Earth.

As he approached from the lunar axis of Earth he got a better sight of Earth, it seemed identical in almost every way, but it wasn't until he reached about geosynchronous orbit that he noted the difference in geography from that of his own Earth. 'Well that's new.' He thought as he passed over what should have been North America.

A large section of the American continent seemed to have been cut across; it seemed that Canada also seemed to have a slightly different configuration. He used his on board scanners to make a quick analysis of this Earth. As the computers compiled the data recorded from his position above Earth, he decided to move his fighter around the planet to get a basic overview of the planet.

After what seemed like a few minutes, he managed to gather data on 3 continents and a dozen other isolated regions on this alternate Earth. He noted a strange anomaly; there were sections of the Earth which seemed to show some highly unusual atmospheric compositions, high amounts of carbon dioxide and elevated levels of alkaline metals.

It wasn't normal that was for sure, he did a slightly broader spectrum of scans on these particular regions, the highest concentrations were in places over Europe, Africa and a few parts of the Pacific and Atlantic. He then got a sudden alert on one of his scanners, a high energy concentration; the radiation emissions indicated weapons fire.

'What the hell is going on down there?' He thought to himself.

He made a quick pass over Europe to get a more detailed scan of the area; it was the closest region to him, he then noticed a drastically high energy emission from the planet's surface, it was definitely weapons fire. If he had to guess, it looked something like directed laser fire like those mounted on earlier series of warships used by the USAF.

But this energy emission was somewhat cruder; it was more of an uncontrolled burst of energy burst than a really directed weapon, whatever was causing it definitely wasn't something he'd seen before. It was then he did a short EM scan of the surrounding region, and not to his surprise there was activity.

Radio transmissions were being sent left and right, but these varied from short ranged radios to slightly more dedicated intercontinental transmissions, but the thing was that most of these transmissions were fairly weak by comparison to 21st century level of communications. He was sure who ever lived here were in a still developing level of society.

Sheppard decided it was best to send back a message to the fleet and tell them the Earth was habitable and well inhabited. He also intended to go down and take a closer look at what was going on the planet's surface. Carter wouldn't really approve of him doing things on his own, but he had jurisdiction to do so, which has been invaluable in letting him deal with a variety of situations.

As he sent the transmission back over his subspace communications array, he turned his attention back to the blue spherical world below. 'Time to get to work.' He smiled inwardly.

His fighter broke from geosynchronous orbit and made a steady descent into the atmosphere, his target was the western most region of Europe, and he found a lot of transmissions being made over in England, in a place which he identified as Dover.

XXXXX

Date: 1944/4/11

Location: Britannia, North East of Dover

It had been another sunny day in Britannia, which of course was wonderful to those who had the chance to take a break and enjoy some tea and relax. But that wasn't going to happen for those who were currently engrossed in a fairly serious battle over the Britannian Channel. Over the clear blue ocean two dozen objects danced over the skies, trading blows, from beams of sharp red light to the shower of gold from weapons fire.

Miyafuji's heart raced as she twisted and turned in mid-air to avoid the violent stabbing light of a beam which passed her by a couple of meters. She was nervous from the scale of the battle which was now unfolding around her, what should have been a simple interception of a single Neuroi had drastically turned into the dogfight of her life.

A few minutes prior a single stingray like Neuroi attack vessel was spotted approaching from a moderate altitude, she was sent to intercept with, Major Sakamoto, Perrine, Lynnette, and Francesca. But upon arriving at their target, they were greeted by a dozen more Neuroi who had surprisingly disguised themselves as part of a cloud formation.

Well from that point onwards the battle which should have been an intercept mission drastically changed to a brutal all of dogfight to destroy the Neuroi attackers. All members of the wing had been sent out to engage in the battle which had proven surprisingly more difficult than any other battle they had been previously in.

Miyafuji's attention was drawn away as she heard Sakamoto shout over her transponder.  
"Miyafuji, look out!"

Miyafuji twisted her head around to face an incoming attack from what could be described as a bird shaped Neuroi; it came right at her with its beams charged up. She immediately made an evasive manoeuvre by kicked her Striker around and sending her down into a corkscrew to avoid the attack.

She was successful in dodging the beam, however the Neuroi corrected itself and made similar manoeuvre to get onto Miyafuji's tail. The young witch turned her Type 99 machine gun at the incoming Neuroi and fired a few shots to knock it off her tail; the Neuroi drone was slightly damaged and pulled away from further damage.

She was glad it pulled away; it gave her the time to recover as she pulled out of her dive and made her ascent back to the primary engagement. She received another call from her close friend and mentor. "Miyafuji are you alright?" Sakamoto inquired with a slight tone of concern as she stayed at a distance from the largest Neuroi in the battle.

She replied in a reassuring tone. "I'm fine, but it's getting really exhausting."

Sakamoto acknowledged this fact, they were in this battle for the last 20 minutes, and it wasn't going so well. As much as the witches poured into the attack, the Neuroi had this seemingly difficult ability to immediately break off and regenerate to fight once more. This battle was becoming draining on all members of the fighter wing.

Currently there were 10 Neuroi left, 3 had been destroyed, and 1 being the large stingray like Neuroi drone, 2 others which had been caught by Eila and Hartmann, but the others were still in the fight and making this engagement absolutely exhausting. The needed to take a break soon or a short reprieve or they'd run out of magic long before they run out of bullets.

The good news was that a small battle group of ships were coming in the next few minutes to join in, they had a dozen fighters which had been fuelled and sent off, they'd all arrive to support the witches, but before then the battle might end badly if things didn't turn in their favour soon.

The Neuroi they currently faced were mainly very agile classes which possessed precision firepower meant to overwhelm individual witches, or open them to attack from other Neuroi, but the only larger Neuroi present was a large wing shaped Neuroi bomber which had immense levels of firepower and thick armour.

This culmination of speed with firepower put the witches of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing at a disadvantage, trying to attack the large bomber wing Neuroi was far too difficult with the smaller ones chasing them away. The commander of the 501st Minna was busy trying to organise and effective strategy to overcome the large Neuroi attack.

So far she had been unsuccessful as the battle raged on. Above the group the two hardest hitters of the strike wing were busy attempting to deal with the individual Neuroi fighters, so far they were trailing after 3 of the Neuroi fighters, but had to continually twist and turn as the Neuroi did everything to lead them in circles.

"Damn it; just sit still you little-." Captain Gertrud Barkhorn shouted out aloud as she sent a burst of machine gun fire down at one of the Neuroi she was in pursuit of.

She managed to pepper the single Neuroi fighter, the damage was moderate as it began to regenerate immediately, and instead of firing back it made a beeline to the large Neuroi wing unit. Gertrud knew that the smaller units used the larger wing to shield themselves and regenerate and return to the fight, a cheap tactic but sadly effective.

She felt more than annoyed at this and tried to chase down the Neuroi fighter before it accomplished its goal, she knew she'd probably use up a lot of her ammo, but she couldn't let the damn thing get back into the fight. She accelerated and tailed right after the single fighter, blasting as its body with as much accuracy as she could afford.

The wing Neuroi noticed the approach of Barkhorn and began to cover the smaller Neuroi fighter, beams cut through the air as she continued her pursuit, Minna who was observing immediately hailed her on the radio.  
"Trude, pullback you're going in too far." She advised the captain.

Gertrud replied as she continued to chase after her intended target. "I know, but I can't let this one regenerate, we've already spent more than enough time fighting this damn battle."

It was then Barkhorn managed to get right under the large Neuroi bomber, which had stopped firing to avoid hitting the smaller fighter, this gave her the opportunity to line up her shots, in a flash she managed to obliterate the left side of the small Neuroi fighter, it spun out of control as it had lost its agile body, Barkhorn finished it off with a short burst from her MG42.

However upon finishing off the smaller fighter Barkhorn noticed the ominous shadow of the large bomber was still above her, she then realised what was going to happen. She cursed inwardly and pulled away as a concentration of beams was suddenly blasted from the large wing bomber. Gertrud managed to pull away, but not before a dozen beams slammed into her magical shield.

She was nearly knocked right into the water, but corrected herself and accelerated from the range of the wing bomber, however she didn't see was a single Neuroi fighter had taken a position above within the sun. Minna was the only one who saw it and shouted.  
"Trude above you!"

Barkhorn managed to twist about as a single Neuroi fighter came in a dive firing off its beams in a spiral pattern; Gertrud had moments to react as the beams cut through the air around her. She narrowly avoided a dozen hits and fired in retaliation, but as she fired she noticed the approach of the fighter.

'It's coming in at a ballistic angle!' She realised. Gertrud attempted to pull out of the range, but there wasn't enough time.

She formed a shield right above, her but she hadn't a clue how much good that'd do against a Neuroi coming in like a rocket. As it reached a scant few meters, it was hit by an anti-armour round which penetrated its broad side and destroyed its core. The explosion of the small fighter scattered around Trude, she was relieved.

"Good shot Lynne!" Miyafuji said over the radio.

Gertrud turned to face the sniper of their wing who was panting heavily from having to calculate the shot on a whim, she sighed. "Oh good." She muttered over the radio.

"Thanks Lynnette." Gertrud said over the radio in a grateful manner before getting back into the fight.

"Minna I'm running low on ammo." Hartmann said over the radio as she pulled back to a moderate distance from the large Neuroi bomber.

Miyafuji sheepishly added. "Me too."

Eila who was with Sanya said. "I've still got a couple of drums of ammo, and Sanya still has a few rockets, but I don't think we're going to be able to deal with all of these Neuroi on our own." She punctuated with a spray of MG fire at an approaching Neuroi fighter.

Minna could see this wasn't going so well, they were running out of ammo and time. Perrine who had been busily covering Lynnette stated. "I hate to admit it, but I can't see us being able to last any longer in this fight Commander."

Sakamoto then arrived from trying to scan the large Neuroi bomber; she had success thanks to the slightly less number of Neuroi now present. "Minna, I've been able to find the core, it's in a hard place. Located right at its thickest section the core is protected by a number of beam cannons."

Minna suspected as much, she knew that without anything heavier to deal with the Neuroi bomber they'd have to retreat and recover before attempting to attack again, but they had no idea how long it would take to rearm and relaunch. She contemplated a direct assault by using the last of their magic to break through the Neuroi's defences and hit it.

But then it left the 8 remaining Neuroi drones which happened to be still very much active, they couldn't possibly take these remaining fighters down in such short time. It was between eliminating the remaining fighters and running out of stamina, or exhausting all of their magic and being forced to withdraw and reengage later.

Unknowingly the girls didn't realise there was a third option…

XXXXX

(I'm mixing in both sides of the POV)

Sheppard found the sight below him to be truly an interesting one, flying wings which shot lasers at what looked like young girls with fighter propeller or planes attached to their legs, also they happened to be in their panties. His camera had caught most of the action going on below, but it only raised a fairly obvious question.

'What the hell is going on?' He thought to himself as he looked at the battle below.

He couldn't even begin to comprehend what was transpiring below him, but this was certainly new and refreshing, he was thrown into another completely unpredictable scenario to determine life and death for whoever was below. He admitted being shot, blown up, vaporised, burned, electrocuted, fed on by a life sucking alien, and turned into a bug was definitely more painfully refreshing than this.

But this whole situation was wacky, more weird and wacky than trying to surf a tank through the atmosphere of a planet, wackier than being catapulted through the accretion disk of a black hole with nothing but his fighter to save his sorry ass from a Wraith Cruiser hot on his tail, wackier than jumping inside of a planet to detonate a powerful as hell explosive to wipe out some damn replicators.

'Yeah this is pretty wacky.' He thought to himself.

As the girls fought off the attacking flying drones of whatever the heck they were engaged with, he decided to go in, might as well say high to the locals. He hoped that they didn't just beat him over the head for seeing them in their underwear. Pulling his fighter in from its hiding position, he deactivated his stealth field and armed his primary and secondary weapons.

'Going hot.' He thought as he interfaced his combat controls.

He aimed the secondary heavy armament right at the largest target he could see, his ARC lance charged to full power, 50,000 gigajoules of energy ready to blast the unfortunate wing out of existence. He targeted the dead centre of the wing shaped attacker, as he came in a dive; he let loose the first shot.

Anyone who happened to be looking at the large wing Neuroi were blinded as a blast came through from the sky, the large wing bomber Neuroi was illuminated by the sharp blast of light as it struck its centre; the witches were baffled as well as blinded as the Neuroi suddenly exploded in a flash of light.

"What the heck was that?" Charlotte the wing's fastest flier exclaimed as the shockwave from the impact rippled through the air.

The explosion took a few moments to clear, but from the looks of the impact, the Neuroi bomber had been severely crippled by the impact of whatever had struck it. There was a massive gaping hole in the centre which had also opened up the core of the Neuroi for them to see. The bomber wing hadn't been destroyed, but it looked as good as dead to anyone else.

It was then the witches then heard something, it was strange at first, it was a dull roar of air, but it wasn't like that from a fighter plane or a striker. Minna, who had been initially watching the Neuroi bomber in shocked fascination, suddenly felt something, another presence. She turned her head upwards and saw a single approaching object.

"Hey what's that?" Miyafuji who had sheltered Lynnette and Perrine from the shockwave asked in a puzzled tone.

The others also saw the incoming object, it was a sleek black dagger shaped object which happened to have a large spear of sorts attached to the underside of it, but as it came closer, the shape suddenly changed. Its forward section which looked as though it was part of it suddenly spread open like wings.

"Is that a fighter?" Barkhorn said as she tried to get a better view.

"Minna is that a Neuroi?" Sakamoto asked the Commander in a serious tone.

Minna who was in deep thought tried to discern what the supposed fighter was; she was greeted by the feeling of someone, a man? It definitely seemed like a fighter now, but the question was, who was piloting it? She called over the radio. "Girls the approaching fighter has the presence of a human inside of it."

"Seriously someone's flying that thing?" Charlotte perplexed.

"It seems so, but it's not one of ours, could it be another one of Maloney's creations?" Barkhorn asked them all.

"I don't think so, the Warlock he used was powered and controlled by a Neuroi core, whatever this is, doesn't have a core, it's piloted by a human." Minna replied.

The fighter dipped down and made an incredible turn in flight, something which should have torn other planes to pieces, which only proved that whatever this thing was it wasn't normal. But then again, when was anything ever normal around here? The sudden pause was interrupted as Elia exclaimed. "Uh girls we need some help!"

They turned to see Sanya and Eila twisting around dodging incoming fire from 3 Neuroi fighters which had suddenly circled them, Sanya let loose a barrage of rockets and destroyed one fighter, but a second one followed up which Eila attempted to intercept. The fighter fired a beam which Eila instinctively dodged, but remembered Sanya who was right behind her.

'Shit!' Eila cursed inwardly as the beam passed her.

Sanya who had exhausted a fair amount of her magic had moments to react as the beam struck her, her magical shield only lasted a scant couple of seconds but failed, the beam's intensity was dispersed but managed to punch through at the end. It struck Sanya's striker, in the blink of an eye, her left striker was critically damaged.

Sanya knew what to do and dropped the damaged striker off her leg, but not before it exploded, Sanya's other striker was hit by shrapnel from the explosion, which sent her into an uncontrollable spin. Eila who feared for her dearest and passionate friend shouted. "Sanya hold on!"

Eila didn't have time to get to Sanya as the Neuroi fighters suddenly propelled themselves forwards with the opening to attack Eila. She managed to dodge the next few attacks and let loose a few shots, but the Neuroi fighters managed to dodge a good number of the hits and circled around the lone witch.

The others who had seen the whole scene unfold attempted to make their way to Sanya and Eila, but they were on the other side of the battle, Charlotte could probably reach Sanya if she wasn't being pursued by a Neuroi fighter. The others attempted to push over to the two isolated witches.

Sanya who was on the verge of passing out from the uncontrolled spin lost her other striker and was now in open free-fall, she could see all around her, but she tried to turn about to see Eila. She could only grab a glimpse as Eila attempted to fight through the remaining Neuroi fighters. But as her view turned back to the open sky, she saw something, a large black shadow passed over her and something had fallen off of the shadow.

It was then she got a good view of what was approaching, it was a Neuroi, a human shaped one… but it looked strange.

Sheppard honestly had no idea what was going on, but seeing a young girl get blasted out of the sky was something he couldn't ignore, he twisted his fighter around and accelerated at his best speed in atmospheric conditions. As he passed over the young girl he activated his secondary control interface and popped open the canopy of his Kestrel.

His atmospheric gear attached itself to his armour as he prepared to make an atmospheric jump, he hoped that his anti-grav pack and primary thrusters worked well for atmosphere, he'd really hate to use the fighter to pick him and the girl up after making such a daring move. He leapt after the young girl with his atmospheric pack catapulting him at incredible speeds.

He reached the girl in a few moments; he grabbed her arms and pulled her close to his chest before he properly held her in his arms and then turned his jetpack back to the Kestrel, he encompassed the girl in the inertial dampening field to make sure he didn't accidently cause her any harm from rapid acceleration.

He reached the cockpit of his Kestrel within moments and locked himself back into place of the cockpit. 'Okay, hadn't done that in a while.' He thought to himself. He locked his suit back into the control interface of his fighter and turned his fighter away as the strange shaped aliens or whatever appeared.

They fired a couple of directed beams of energy at him; the Kestrel turned on a dime and spun away from the beams in a sharp burst of acceleration. Sheppard who had the girl still in his arms carefully nudged her a little; she was definitely dazed from falling at such a height not to mention spinning at such speeds.

He used his suit's external microphone. "Hey there you might wanna wake up now."

He knew that he could control the fighter through his neural lace, but it wasn't as natural as feeling the controls as well, he was a bit old fashioned when it came to piloting. As the hostiles attempted to get a bead on him, he pulled the reverse on the engines and put himself right behind the two hostiles and blasted them away with the dual 30mm rail guns mounted in the forward section of his Kestrel.

The explosion shook the Kestrel enough that the young girl finally woke up from her dizzy spell; she rubbed her eyes and looked around. She was greeted by the sight of Sheppard's imposing figure, not to mention glowing slitted eyes of his helmet. "Hey there." He said to her.

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Meanwhile, the other members of the Wing who watched what had transpired were quite surprised of what the pilot of the strange craft had done, but there was also the fact that the individual had taken Sanya right from under their noses. Eila who had been initially tied up with the Neuroi fighters was relieved as the mysterious craft eliminated the two fighters with relative ease.

The other members were stunned at how such a machine could be capable of doing such a thing so quickly, that and the fact that the machine dodged the beams the Neuroi fighters fired after it was pretty impressive, the forces the pilot must be put under would make others pass out. The mysterious black craft twisted in mid-air and turned back this time it let loose of what could be described as large rockets.

8 of these rockets spun through the air and suddenly broke off to chase down the Neuroi fighters still in the air, the Neuroi fighters attempted to escape the range of the guided rockets, but they weren't as quick as the rockets suddenly accelerated once the Neuroi reached a certain distance of it.

Each Neuroi fighter was suddenly blown to pieces by the rockets, shockwaves from the explosion wasn't as intense as the mysterious beam which the unidentified craft had fired, but it was enough to shake the witches in the air. Charlotte said something profound.  
"What in the fuck was that?"

"I don't know but whatever it was, it just did our job for us." Erica Hartmann stated.

"Uh girls what do we do about that bomber?" Miyafuji asked them all.

The witches suddenly recalled that the Neuroi bomber was still in the air, they turned to face the large wing shaped Neuroi to find it was slowly regenerating from its damage. They were sure it would have repaired itself much sooner, but it seemed this one was rather happy to take its time.

"Girls we need to destroy the core while we can." Minna stated plainly. "We can try getting Sanya back once we've dealt with the current threat."

"Uh Commander Minna… I think that strange plane is going to attack the bomber." Lynnette said as she pointed out to the dark figure of the craft suddenly coming at the Neuroi at tremendous speeds.

The Neuroi bomber responded by firing as many beams at the approaching craft, but by what people might consider a miraculous level of either insane skill or speed, the pilot was dodging the incoming beams with ease, they seemed to twist around the craft as it shot forwards. At then they saw what it was doing, the craft fired up its weapons and sent a burst of weapons fire right at where the core was.

The Neuroi shrieked as its core was punctured by the fire from the mysterious craft. And in the blink of an eye it shattered into millions of pieces, scattering into the winds. The witches of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing looked on in amazement. What they had witnessed was unbelievable, how one machine managed to destroy all of the remaining Neuroi in such short order was incredible.

"What the hell is that?" Barkhorn muttered over the radio.

Eila exclaimed. "It better not leave with Sanya!"

It was then they heard something. "Sorry about that ladies. I couldn't get this damn radio on the right frequency fast enough, your young friend Sanya helped me out here. I should introduce myself." A male voice cut in.

The dark craft suddenly halted in mid-air, it was a strange sight for sure, it levelled itself off at the height which Minna and others were, the girls all rushed to the strange craft. Its canopy shimmered before revealing Sanya sitting right in the lap of what looked like a Neuroi, but it was human shaped, at least that was what they believed.

"Who are you?" Minna demanded.

The pilot who suddenly sensed the hostility in the air, decided to raise his hands and reply.  
"I'm Colonel John Sheppard, of the Pegasus Expedition, Firth Nova Division of the United Earth Federation Forces."

The canopy opened to let out Sanya who turned about and said. "Thank you Mr Sheppard." She blushed before Eila came flying along and scooped Sanya from the cockpit.

"I'm glad to see that you're all happy." Sheppard quipped.

"What is that you're piloting?" Charlotte asked in an excited tone as she looked at the machine.

"Uh this my FV-105 Kestrel, modified to my specifications of course. I can't really tell you much, but she's my bird." Sheppard replied in kind.

"Why do you look like a Neuroi?" Barkhorn demanded to know.

Sheppard craned his neck around and said. "Neuroi? What's a Neuroi? I'm sorry but I haven't the faintest idea of what you happen to be talking about. But as for why I look like this…" He grasped his helmet.

The girls all watched eagerly as Sheppard pressed something on the back of his helmet, a short hiss was followed by the helmet suddenly collapsing around his head and retracting. They were both surprised and impressed at how that worked, but they were greeted by the face of a man. His dark hair shone in the afternoon light, his face scarred in some sections, but it was his eyes which truly defined him.

He had a clear blue eye on his left side, and a glowing orange eye on his right side.  
"Let's just say I have my reasons." He smiled as he replied in a kind tone.

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AN: Done and done, chapter 1 is completed and ready for consumption.

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Codex: UEFF

Allies: Vaunians

Of the various powers which came into existence, one was particularly complicated, they are known as the Vaunians, a faction of humans who were taken from Earth as slaves thousands of years ago by the goa'uld and were abandoned on a mining world Vaun. The people of Vaun became Vaunians who hated their previous gods and all those related to them, but they became capable of advancing technologically.

They soon reached a space faring level of technology and science where they began to explore, but unfortunately they ran into trouble in the short years they managed to reach FTL level of technology. The Vaunians ran across their former gods and began a war to annihilate them, the UEF ran across the enraged race of humans 300 years into their war.

With the aid of SG-1 and a few other teams, the Vaunians managed to win the war, but had a slight problem. In the hundreds of years since the start of their war against the goa'uld, they had a large scale population issue; the need for soldiers required a tremendous amount of birth rates and caused the Vaunian population to increase 5 times its original size.

Their armies were made entirely of men, and young boys, which was acceptable since the male population of Vaun was 5 times as many as the female portion. The UEF expressed apprehension in permitting the use of child soldiers, but the Vaunians stated this was their custom and culture. And since the UEF helped, they'd help the UEF militarily by sending volunteer corps of Vaunians to fight against the goa'uld.

The UEF didn't ignore the gift the Vaunians were willing to present them with, but there wasn't much of a choice to begin with, it was a serious insult to the way in which Vaunians lived their lives, and in the spirit of avoiding a interplanetary incident, the UEF agreed reluctantly to accept a portion of all recruited Vaunian soldiers into UEFF to serve and fight for humanity.


	2. Chapter 2

CH2: Greetings, salutations, and limbs… wait what?

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AN: Hey guys got this next chapter up and running, it was fairly simple enough.

On one other note, I have difficulty describing the hair styles of some characters my apologies if I get them wrong I'm still sort inexperienced in writing in accurate descriptions.

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Location: Britannia, North East Dover

Sheppard wasn't sure about the situation, being surrounded by 11 girls who happened to be flying on what looked like the bodies of airplanes he'd seen in history books, and well a couple of air shows. He couldn't put his finger on it but it seemed that these girls had a difference about them. He wasn't sure on how to proceed from here but asked nicely.

"Why are you all flying in your underwear?" He pointed out.

One of the eldest of the girls who had red hair replied.  
"Why we are in our underwear is necessary to fly our strikers, they need direct contact with our skin or we cannot control our strikers properly." She said curtly.

"Ah, so then I assume those cat ears and tails are also part of this deal?" Sheppard inquired.

They looked at each other and the red haired girl answered him.  
"No our familiars are part of us being witches." She said in a slightly confused tone.

"Ah, okay, if you're witches then where are your broomsticks?" Sheppard asked as he looked around at them.

"Are we seriously going to spend all day here just talking about this?" A blonde haired woman asked them all.

Sheppard felt that asking too many questions without answering any kind of seemed a little impolite. "Sorry it's just that where I come from, witches don't exist and well technically speaking the laws of physics and thermodynamics would usually say it shouldn't be possible. But whatever the case may be, do you know any place to land?" He asked them.

One other girl who seemed older than the red haired one stated.  
"We have a base nearby, Commander Minna should we show Colonel Sheppard to it?"

The red haired woman he now identified as Minna took a moment before looking over at the others. They didn't seem to have much trouble letting Sheppard go back with them, Eila seemed happy enough to have Sheppard around since he saved Sanya. Minna nodded.  
"Okay, you may follow us back to base, but when we arrive we expect a full debriefing, along with you."

Sheppard said thoughtfully. "That's fine, as long as you don't plan to stick me in a cell I'm all for it."

He gestured with his hand and said. "Lead the way."

Minna ordered all the girls.  
"Strike Witches return to base."

They all said in unison. "Yes ma'am."

They spun around and began to fly towards Dover, Sheppard put his plan in cruise mode and matched speeds with the girls, and he felt that he was going to have a long day ahead of him. He wondered if Carter and the others back at the fleet had received his message, it'd be funny enough to add this into his report.

As they began to make their way back, Sheppard took a moment to look at each individual girl who was flying in formation, he saw a young girl who looked barely 14 years old who had a pair of dog ears and had a sailor uniform with a leotard underneath, well she and her elder counterpart looked like they were from the same nationality.

'Japanese girls flying in swimmers great, as if this day couldn't possibly get more awkward.' He thought to himself.

A bit through their trip, one of the girls made her way to him, he identified her as a red haired teen, and surprisingly she was fairly tall and buxom for such a young woman. She approached with a look of interest at his Kestrel.  
"Hey there, I gotta say your bird is really sweet." She said in an excited tone.

"Yeah, the Kestrel here is a smooth ride especially during combat, I made some adjustments for her though so she moves the way I move, essentially she's kinda like the extension of my own body." He stated.

He didn't mention the fact that the Kestrel was technically part of his own body in some more physical sense, she was built to emulate incredible reaction time and enabled him direct neural interface making it controllable at incredible distances. Of course he didn't want to go into ridiculous detail so he held off from adding that.

"Oh I saw you fighting the Neuroi, you were really impressive, and I haven't seen anyone able to dodge all those beams like you. Your plane must really be fast." She said at interest at the details of the atmospheric intakes of the Kestrel. She inquired. "Does your fighter run on one of those jet engines we have in development here?"

Sheppard replied in a humble tone. "She runs on a sub-light engine drive, along with quad linked fusion ion drives; my Kestrel can pull speeds up to Mach 15 to 24 speeds in atmosphere."

The girl's jaw practically dropped as she exclaimed in an astounded voice.  
"MACH TWENTY FOUR?!" She almost jumped into his cockpit as she pressed up against him in astonishment.

"Yeah, but that's in atmosphere, the Kestrel travels a lot faster in space." He explained.

"A lot faster in space? You mean beyond the sky?" She asked him in a positively electric tone.

"Yeah… my bird can travel at average of 65% the speed of light, and well 70% if the situation is in need of it." He replied to her in a slightly baffled tone.

The girl was giving him the feeling she was a speed freak, of course he'd run into a couple in his lifetime as a pilot, he hadn't met one as interesting as this girl here. The girl practically drooled over his fighter for the more apparent reasons. He then added.  
"I'm guessing you're really interested in going faster than the speed of sound?"

The red haired girl nodded. "Definitely, I only broke the speed of sound once, but after then I never managed to do it again, I'd burn out of magic long before I broke past it, but for you it seems like normal doesn't it?" She asked him as she continued to fly around his fighter.

"Yeah, pretty much, I've been flying birds like these for some years now, got good scores with my Kestrel here. She's built to take on a lot of damage and dish out a lot, upgraded her to do more than just shoot and fly though." He replied curtly. He then decided to ask her. "Oh by the way, I didn't catch your name."

The red haired girl recalled that fact and sheepishly smiled before introducing herself.  
"Oh I'm Charlotte E. Yeager though everyone calls me 'Shirley', I'm from the United States of Liberion, and I'm the fastest flier in the wing."

"Yeager huh? Interesting name…" He muttered as he thought it through.

He had recalled the name Yeager from somewhere and carefully recalled his history books on the Second World War, it then hit him, he checked his records with what he knew and then realised who this person was, "Chuck" Yeager, the first man to break past the speed of sound, not to mention a fairly well known ace in American history.

He almost jumped when he made the connection. He decided to inquire. "So out of curiosity, do you know a man named by Albert Yeager?"

Shirley nodded. "Yeah he's my dad." She said in response only confirming what he assumed.

'Okay now this is officially weirder than anything I've encountered before.' He thought to himself, he decided to keep quiet and just talk casually to Shirley.  
"So, you plan to break the speed of sound?" He inquired as they travelled.

"Already did, though it was by a slight fluke, Lucchini there managed to change something in my striker which made me fly faster than the speed of sound." She thumbed over to the tan skinned girl with pigtails; she looked mischievously at Sheppard which seemed to send his internal alarm about troublemakers off.

"Okay, well good to know. I'm probably guessing taking a ride with me would be…" He said in an inquisitive tone.

Shirley almost jumped at the opportunity to ride in his fighter, but their little discussion was interrupted by Minna who cut in. "I'm sorry Shirley but I don't think you'll have time to join the Colonel in his fighter. We're almost back at home base anyway it'd be easier to get debriefed first." The wing commander stated.

Shirley sighed. "Okay." She really wanted to take a ride in the Kestrel but not today.

It was then her and Shirley was joined by two other witches one who he hadn't encountered and Sanya who was being held by the other girl. The pale skinned girl who hair silvery hair smiled as she came close. "I feel compelled to thank you again Mr Sheppard." She said with a slight blush.

"Ah no problem, but please refer to me as Sheppard or Colonel Sheppard, I usually don't go with Mr at any given time, kinda makes me feel a little old." He said warmly.

The other girl also said in a grateful tone. "I should say thanks as well, I don't know how things would have gone if you hadn't gone and saved Sanya."

"Don't worry about it, though I don't believe we were introduced before." He said to her.

"Oh I'm Eila, Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen." Eila introduced herself.

"Pleased to meet you." He said aptly.

"So, when we get back to base, are you going to tell us about all of this stuff you have?" Eila asked him.

"Yeah, well not in detail, I'll reserve that for Shirley here." He thumbed over at the red haired girl who was still drooling happily over the Kestrel.

Lucchini was pouting off on the right hand side of Shirley. He then added.  
"It's going to be a long story." He said with a shrug.

It was then they had the other girls drop in on the conversation. The young Japanese girl, or what passed as Japanese here, came over with her friend seeing as she was pulling her along, and one other girl who came over to see what the commotion was about.  
"Hello, I'm Miyafuji Yoshika, and this is Lynnette Bishop." She gestured to her pale haired friend.

"Nice to meet you two, you already know me as Sheppard, that's all I can say really." He stated in response.

Miyafuji gave him a closer look and asked him. "You have a lot of scars on your face, how did you get those?" She asked him curiously.

Sheppard felt a little hesitant in replying, it wasn't something he rather felt personal about, it was just unpleasant remembering being shot out into space, slowly suffocated and tossed into a decaying orbit where his body burnt up in the atmosphere of a planet. Oh also the fact that he wasn't entirely human anymore.

"It's a long story, I'll tell you girls later about it, at the moment just think of it as an additional upgrade to my body." He replied.

"Why is that?" Miyafuji inquired.

He really didn't like trying to go into detail with little kids, they tended to prod on about certain things he'd rather avoid talking about, and this was one of those things.  
"Best I explain later." He replied aptly.

As they came up upon the Strike Witches base, Sheppard got a good look at it, he admitted it was pretty damn impressive for a base, well if you like castles which sat on mini-islands, yeah it was pretty interesting. The whole castle reminded him of stories of fantasy worlds which had floating castles in the sky, and well World of Warcraft, but he wasn't so interested in fantasy based games.

Minna called to the girls over the radio.  
"We're making final approach now, set down and once you've put your strikers away, go to the briefing room, I'm sure our new guest has quite a lot of explaining to do." She said passively.

"Yes ma'am." Most of the girls responded.

Sheppard decided to ask.  
"Where should I put down my Kestrel?"

Minna took a moment to think about where to fit the Colonel's large fighter, the hangar wasn't intended to fit such a vehicle inside, and it'd probably block the launchers for the strikers which wouldn't be too good. She finally decided. "You can land your fighter just to the left of the runway, there should be enough open space to fit it, but you'll need to be careful about spacing." Minna stated as she pointed to an open section on his right.

As they began their descent, the witches went ahead and landed on the airstrip, Sheppard had to navigate his Kestrel above the base, he took a moment to get better bearings on the position of the side spot and put his fighter into hover mode. He began a steady descent to the ground; he kept his descent at a slow pace since he had only enough space to land.

As he made touchdown he noted the girls coming out of the hangar to greet him, they all seemed to be excited for his arrival, as he secured his Kestrel on the ground. He shut down his engines and picked himself out of the fighter. He landed on the ground in his normal gear; he left his atmospheric attachments back inside the Kestrel.

His feet hit the ground as he exited his fighter, it felt good to be on solid earth once more, unlike being stuck aboard a cruiser for the past 2 weeks with nothing more to do than listen to McKay and Eli go at it about their theories or playing Xbox all weekend. He admitted though, the kid had a knack for strategy games.

As he looked around at the base, he found the girls walking out of the hangar bay; they waved at him as he got down. He took a moment to check he had all he needed on his persons before going off to the briefing; he also took along one small holographic projector. He walked over to them with his helmet retracted back into his suit.

"Hey there, so should we get this show on the road?" He asked them with a faint smile.

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It didn't take long to make the trip to the briefing room, though the sheer size of the base was impressive, plenty of room, paintings, hallways and decorations, it was hard for him to imagine the whole castle was just an airfield. It seemed quite overindulgent in his opinion; most bases he had ever been to were as Spartan in design and look as possible.

Never had he once stepped into a military facility expecting to find vases of flowers and tapestries of local nobles over the place, but here he was, in a base that was exactly fitted to such standards. He couldn't help but be impressed at the sight, as well as a little bit annoyed, such luxuries are never necessary for long term reasons, of course that was just his opinion.

He had a feeling these girls had such things to keep them from feeling depressed by simple grey walls and metal floors, he knew the feeling, being stuck at the Jefferson Airbase, and other facilities back in good old America he had stuck in mostly grey painted halls and rooms. He also recalled the time he spent aboard the old Daedalus during her tour against the Wraith for a year.

But even so, he couldn't help but feel caught up in some sort of fantasy world, even if it was technically the 20th century. He strode in tow alongside the Witches as they made their next set of steps around a corner through another brightly lit corridor. Sheppard could hear the girls chatter amongst themselves about their daily lives, speaking of what they planned to do in their spare time.

And also their amalgamated chatter wandered in his general direction as they asked each other what they thought of him. They didn't realise he had enhanced cybernetic hearing and cochlear implants. He caught them chatting about how Shirley felt about the machine he flew and about what they imagined he actually looked like underneath all of the armour he was wearing.

Sheppard honestly felt like he was back in high-school dealing with gossiping girls who had a thing for him, he couldn't help but feel a bead of sweat drop on the side of his head. As they finally arrived at the briefing room, the group stepped through the large wooden oak doors and into a long rectangular room with a blackboard in the back and a couple of whiteboards sitting around.

"Okay girls take a seat." Minna said to the Witches.

They all did so and let Sheppard past with Minna and Sakamoto, who took their places at the front of the room. Minna waited a bit for the girls to get seated, Sheppard was already inputting the data of what he needed to show them once he began. As they finally finished seating themselves, Minna began the debriefing.

"As you already know, we have our guest here today, Colonel John Sheppard, of a force called the United Earth Federation, we will let him explain what has transpired today before we continue on." Minna said in a calm productive fashion.

She went to the side and took a seat at her desk; Sakamoto remained standing watch at the Colonel who was now placing a small cube shaped device on the floor.  
Sheppard clapped his hands together as the device began to hum to life. He began in a candid fashion.  
"Okay, well I'm sure you've all gotten to know of my name, as to who I am, well I am part of a military organisation called the United Earth Federation Forces, more specifically I'm from a division called the Pegasus Expedition Forces." He said as he activated the holographic projector.

A bright light materialised the form of what looked like a hawk holding in place the shape of earth, a wreath was at the bottom of the symbol which seemed to act like a guard for the emblem. The girls were surprised at the image and were amazed at how there such an image was being shown to them, they've seen film projectors, but never something like this.

"Any questions regarding the UEF?" He asked them openly.

The girls took a moment to think about it, with Miyafuji looking confused about the whole thing, she threw a look over to Lynnette who really didn't look like she could ask a question first. It was Gertrud who asked openly.  
"So what's this UEF about? We surely haven't heard about it."

"Ah yes that, well the United Earth Federation is essentially the United Nations…" Which didn't exist till a much later date after WWII. He cleared his throat and simplified it.  
"The United Earth Federations is the unified members of Earth, every single country and nation on the planet which are part of a single global government which pretty much runs everything, aside from the handful of non-unified nations which refused to join or are openly hostile. The idea was to create a single government to help coordinate more effectively all the resources of Earth." He explained.

They gave him a slight look of interest and some confusion, he hadn't exactly explained in total detail is that the UEF also happens to have a number of member nations such as colonies and external human worlds. He decided to clarify a little bit.  
"The United Earth Federation was built during a time of crisis as Earth was under threat of invasion from a very powerful alien race, we had our allies called the UCAF, an alien faction of sorts who aided us and asked us to unite, so we did. And that's how we were formed; the United States of America, China, Russia, Great Britain along with Europe formed a massive government and began to battle against the aliens."

The names of each great power seemed to grab the attention of each girl; they didn't understand exactly why each name of their countries sounded so different. Sakamoto decided to inquire.  
"All of those names sound familiar, but where, or how did you get here?" She asked aptly in a clear but very determined tone.

She wasn't suspicious about him, he could tell from her tone.  
"That's a little hard to explain, you see the universe is filled with infinite possibilities, every action has effects which changes whole events across your world. To put it simply and bluntly, I'm from what you call an alternate reality, or parallel world, or universe. Where everything is very different than what's happening here." He said in an honest tone.

The girl's attentions peaked when he explained, he could be sure that Gertrud, Eila and Minna, we're the only ones who were following, the others couldn't exactly seem to grasp the concept. He decided to show a comparison. He began with.  
"In our universe there's no such thing as magic, it never existed, and the aliens you are fighting, the Neuroi, well they don't exist in our universe either, and well you can see the difference."

The girls understood that and nodded, with Sanya dozing off in Eila's arms rather than nodding, Sheppard took that as a win, better than having to go over multi-dimensional physics and parallel universal books. "So yes, very big differences in our two universes, any other question?" He asked them.

Shirley asked in an excited tone almost bouncing off her seat to ask.  
"Can I get to fly in your Kestrel some time? Please?" She asked with a look of absolute love.

Sheppard felt awkward and replied.  
"Uh, sure…"

Shirley sat back down with a look of pure happiness. Minna had a slight apprehensive look at the idea but let it go, it was then Miyafuji spoke up.  
"Uh Mr, I mean Colonel Sheppard, what happened to your face?" She asked him once more.

Sheppard had almost forgotten about the young girl's question earlier, and sighed, he figured that she would probably want to know. He tried to explain in simpler terms, but overall he had a feeling that showing her was the only way to make her understand.  
"Well this here…" He pointed to his glowing eye and face. "Was due to surgery performed on me a number of years ago, mostly to replace this side of my head, of course my head wasn't the only thing that needed reconstructive surgery though." He shrugged.

Miyafuji gave him a mildly concerned look.  
"What happened?" She asked him in a quizzical tone.

He knew that this would probably come up, he felt Minna continuing to stare into the back of his head and Sakamoto also gaze hard at him. The others looked on, with Hartmann giving a slight yawn.  
"Okay, if you want to know. To put it plainly, I was dead." He said honestly.

The girls looked at each other in confusion; Miyafuji had a bigger look of confusion than before. Sakamoto didn't seem to believe him and Minna had an equally perplexed look than Miyafuji. Gertrud asked him.  
"How's that possible? You can't have just died, you're you know still here."

Eila was scratching her head, Shirley sat back looking at him while Lucchini craned her neck to the side, Perrine well she just sat there looking unimpressed by it all. Sheppard hated it when he had to show people…  
"Funny thing, dying can give you some flexibility…" He muttered before he grabbed his left shoulder and pulled away the armoured seal.

The girls looked on in confusion as Sheppard pulled out what looked like a metal cap on his shoulder, he pressed it and then the arm began to whir, the noise stopped as 6 pins in the arm cap came out. His left arm had gone limp, and then Sheppard grabbed his left arm from the shoulder and in a single motion, he pulled his arm loose with a metallic pop.

The girl's look of intrigue was suddenly changed to a look of horror as the arm came loose, the fibres and bones came out of the socket, and Lucchini squealed in surprise and ducked behind Shirley who continued to look on in a horrified sense of interest. Perrine jumped in her seat at the sight and paled when she saw what Sheppard had done.

Minna was no longer seated in her chair and was standing behind her desk, she didn't move, but she looked fairly shocked at what she was seeing. Sakamoto, stood as she did in her spot, but she didn't know how to react, the sight of the man's arm was startling, she hadn't seen anyone be able to pull out their arm in such a fashion, well actually never seen anyone do anything of the sort before.

Gertrud and Erica both had shared looks of apprehension of the sight; they had seen some pretty messy sights in their past, but to see someone actually remove their own arm in such a fashion unnerved them a little. Eila looked on in interest, with Sanya who was now awake; she too had a look of interest but looked a little scared.

Miyafuji looked about as if she wanted to jump over to the man and stop him from going any further with the physical display of his inhuman body, but she was frozen in her chair just watching with Lynnette who looked like she might pass out. Sheppard knew that the tendons and bits of flesh in his arm had long since been replaced.

What these girls were looking at was his biomechanical parts which connected the parts of his body, his metallic connectors and circuit joints were part of the deal; there thankfully was no blood as he pulled his arm clear. He looked at his now dismembered arm and turned to Miyafuji; he stepped forwards to her table and dropped his arm on the table.

He asked her in a calm tone.  
"That enough to sate your curiosity or would you prefer I show you my left leg as well?" He asked her passively.

Miyafuji looked like she had seen a ghost for a moment, and then she looked at the empty socket of an arm. She asked him. "Doesn't that hurt?"

He raised an eyebrow and responded. "Hurt? Not really, I lost all of the flesh and blood on the left side of my body long ago, don't worry about it, but if you need any further example, I can show you the cross-section of my body the doctors scanned while they rebuilt me." He thoughtfully offered.

Miyafuji replied in a slightly alarmed tone. "No please, that's enough."

Minna then asked him. "How are you still alive?" She said in a very serious tone.

The room fell silent as he turned to face the Witches Commander. He replied in his calm fashion.  
"I died a long time ago Commander, when I was a corpse, my people, a faction at least, revived me from death, using my frozen corpse as a template for reconstruction. Part of my body was incinerated during an incident which tossed me into a planet's atmosphere…" He began.

He walked around and let the girls get a better sight of the empty arm socket, which Perrine ducked away rather unwilling to look at something so unsightly in her opinion. Shirley was the only one who took a closer examination of his unique physiology. He continued as calmly as he did.  
"It took a year to rebuild my body, using advanced technological and scientific means, also having to rebuild my brain and arteries, most of which are now like my arm. To put it simply, I'm essentially a partially dead person." He said with a warm smile.

"You look good for a dead man." Shirley stated nonchalantly.

The girls gave her a puzzled look to which she shrugged.  
"I'm just saying…" She said to avoid looking awkward.

"So that explains that." Sakamoto stated as fairly as she could.

Everyone took to a slightly calm state, albeit with Perrine nervous at the sight, and the other girls a bit unnerved at seeing a man who was technically a partially living corpse. He grabbed his arm off of Miyafuji's table. He reattached the arm with a pop and clack of metal; they seemed to jump at the noise for some reason.

"Any more questions ascertaining to what I am?" He asked them aloud.

All the girls shook their heads; they had enough of the details to get a fair picture that asking about a dead man about his death was unpleasant. Gertrud though wanted to know something.  
"I know this sounds a little strange, but your fighter, if you can call it that, where did it come from? Usually fighters have to come from some sort of place, like a carrier or an airfield right"

Sheppard got what she wanted to know.  
"Ah yes, I was getting to that, I did not arrive in this reality by just my fighter, that really wouldn't make much sense. I did arrive by a ship though, but not a ship like you'd know, my ship is called the Arcturus, and well she's pretty big being 3.6 kilometres in length, and nearly a kilometre in height." He said shrewdly.

The intake of information seemed to cause the girls to look at him in absolute shock when they heard about his ship. "WHAT!?" Most of them shouted in unison.

It was now Sheppard's turn to be surprised, the sudden blast of volume caused his internal cochlear implants to deafen him, he squinted and rubbed his ears. "Oww…" He muttered.

Gertrud was the first to exclaim.  
"A ship that size is enormous, bigger than every ship put together in the war right now…" He trailed off in absent shock.

Shirley whistled. "Well that's definitely a new record."

Miyafuji gave him a look of surprise as her jaw had dropped, along with Lynnette who had just been equally as surprised. Sakamoto added.  
"That size of ship would be far too big even for every nation on Earth to construct, I doubt you could just sail it across the ocean without everyone seeing it either."

Sheppard realised the girls seemed to think that the Arcturus was a WWII warship, a very big warship, bigger than a small island to them, he raised his hands and said.  
"Well that's the thing, it's not necessarily sailing, oceans or otherwise, it's more like cruising… in open space." He added at the end.

The room fell back to a dull silence and was quickly followed by another surprised shout.  
"SPACE?!"

That time Sheppard had his cochlear implants buffer the shout, he had a feeling that this would take a bit of time for the culture shock to set in.  
"Right, you haven't exactly started a space program yet, but to put it plainly, yes, it's a space ship, one which can travel the stars themselves, and travel at speeds faster than the speed of light…" He tried to mumble the last bit.

Shirley exclaimed with stars in her eyes.  
"You can fly faster than the speed of light?" She bounced from her desk and into Sheppard's face.

Sheppard was a little caught off guard by her sudden approach and carefully put her back into her seat with his reply.  
"Yes, we have managed to find a means of travelling faster than the speed of light, and have the technology to do so, not to mention ships."

Minna caught the last bit of Sheppard's statement and then asked him.  
"Colonel Sheppard, you said ships, is your Arcturus a single vessel?" She inquired.

Sheppard replied with a slight look of apprehension since she was kinda pressing him on the subject.  
"Well that's the thing, the Arcturus is the name of just my currently assigned ship, but essentially the Arcturus is part of an entire fleet, about a dozen other ships, some smaller than the Arcturus, but many still much bigger than anything you have on earth." He put it simply.

The Commander was surprised at this bit of information, but if he had come here ahead of a fleet then… "Wait if you came here, then when's your fleet coming?" She asked him.

It was then the Colonel's arm began to beep.  
"Oh, I guess that's for me." He said before activating his com.

"This is Sheppard." His demeanour changed from the calm to a sudden cold military attitude.

"This is Carter, Colonel we've been waiting for 6 hours, we're about to jump the fleet, how's the situation on your end?" Carter inquired.

"Current situation is neutral; I was just explaining to some local military of our current situation, they have yet to decide a course of action." He stated.

"You might want to hurry it up Colonel, the fleet jumps in another 3 hours if McKay doesn't accidently cross one of the crystal again." Carter said, McKay said something in the background in a tone of annoyance.

The line closed and Sheppard said to the girls.  
"Well I guess I should be saying, take me to your leader, or something equally profound, but nothing comes to mind…" He shrugged.

Today was going to be a long day.

XXXXX

AN: Sorry had to cut this one a little short, most chapters are going to be somewhere between 5,000 words to 10,000 per chapter, to avoid causing myself carpale tunnel syndrome.


	3. Chapter 3

CH3: Palming the hand…

XXXXX

AN: I tried to make this a bit better than last chapter, I guess I should try and do this one with more detail, but that might get a bit boring. Tell me which one suits better.

XXXXX

Location: Britannia, Dover- 501st Base

After their short briefing, Commander Minna decided to go ahead and contact headquarters on the situation, but also pass along a message to the Air Commodore Adolphine Galland who would be interested in the current developments. As far-fetched as it may sound the evidence was all here, undoubtedly the Britannian Royal Air Command would want to see the UEF Officer and his amazing fighter for themselves.

Minna still didn't like how Sheppard wasn't entirely human, as much as he looked human, he wasn't entirely one, and also the frightening display of removing his own limb to show them didn't help much either. Minna had her concerns that Sheppard might be some ploy to remove the Witches, but the more she thought about it, it didn't add up.

Sheppard was far too advanced to be anything Maloney and his allies would be able to create even with Neuroi technology, Sheppard far surpassed even that of the Neuroi. And then there was something about his demeanour that seemed to be like that of a Liberion soldier than one of Karlsland.

But there was something she couldn't put her finger on, something else seemed to separate him from them. She decided to take some time to think upon it, but came to the conclusion that, for now Sheppard was to be their guest until the arrival of either the UEFF fleet which would undoubtedly blot out the sky from what Sheppard had told them.

As Minna finished her formal report, she filed the document away in a vanilla folder and headed out of her office to join the others downstairs in the dining room, the UEF officer had decided to join them for dinner. He had brought his rations but wanted to try some of Miyafuji's cooking, which by his understanding was called Japanese cuisines.

Minna smiled inwardly, the best way to a man's heart was by his stomach, or so they say.

XXXXX

Sheppard hadn't much tastes for oriental style cooking since his time back in the Nova Division back on Earth when he was stationed off the coast of Okinawa, he had spent time off and on shore leave, usually grabbing something to eat at times. He never understood why, but he hadn't gotten used to the taste of Japanese cuisines, probably since he had eaten dozens of kinds of foods.

He had eaten food from various other worlds usually more robust or bitter, some of those kinds of foods did remind him of Japanese cuisines, but usually they had more citrus in them, which McKay had avoided out of fear of an anaphylactic shock. Even though McKay had gotten biological treatments for eating citrus based foods, he still avoided eating them.

As Sheppard sat at the dining table, he kept his eye on the girls, examining each specific traits, demeanour and etc… He had a feeling learning more about these Witches, was the best way to learn more about their society and culture, also who they were. If he had to convince them or find a means to coerce them, analysing them was the best possible means to and end here.

Shirley and Lucchini were sitting together across the other side of the table, Hartmann was busy playing with her forks and Gertrud was telling her off about table manners and such. He could sense Eila's eyes glanced back and forth between him and Sanya who was seated next to him, since they had to get him a slightly larger chair; his body weight seemed to have adverse effects on furniture.

He could tell Eila didn't like anyone else getting closer to Sanya, likely a bit of jealousy; he'd probably have to keep his tone and distance around Eila. As for the other members of the 501st, he could see Perrine had no high regards for him, she thought of his appearance and demeanour as uncouth. She seemed overly fussy over people's mannerisms.

Of course manners were necessary, but not all the time, then again this was the 20th century, to her being refined is part of her attitude, he could expect to meet others like her, though he felt that there'd be more people like Gertrud to encounter amongst the ranks of the Witches. Speaking of which, Gertrud struck him more akin to a soldier, or someone who acts like a soldier.

She had an air of strictness about her, but she displays a lack of flexibility, then again it's somewhat understandable, but she does seem like someone who needs to consider loosening up, regulations and discipline is one thing, but it doesn't literally mean to act as a soldier 24/7, he's seen soldiers like that before, and when put under enough pressure they tend to snap.

He figured he might consider trying to help lighten things up. He made further observations as their meals were served, Miyafuji who brought dishes to their table with Lynnette cheerily smiled at him.  
"Here you are Sheppard; I hope you don't mind Fuso style cuisines." She said as she laid down a tray which had bowls and plates of Japanese cuisines.

He had smelt the food from a distance thanks to his sense of smell, and he liked the smell at least, it was pleasant, and he knew the smell of freshly cooked rice. Atlantis had a good oriental style restaurant set up in the residential section of the city; he only had a few times to enjoy a meal or two since he had a couple of Japanese or Korean officers within his command.

He found that Miyafuji had been nice enough to give them all spoons and forks for cutlery; he had enough trouble back in the day trying to use a pair of chopsticks, something he has yet to admit that he has poor skills in. As he picked up his cutlery he took a moment to observe the dishes placed before him.

A small dish of spiced pickled cabbage, a bowl of rice, freshly cooked fish in soy sauce, octopus diced and marinated, and a couple of other small side dishes one being what he identified as Natto. He smiled inwardly. 'Ah the dreaded Natto we meet again.' He disliked the dish; in honesty it's not particularly pleasant to his tastes.

He recalled the last time he ate Natto, Ericsson almost choked on the dish rushing to pump his throat full of water. He held his tongue to ensure he didn't spit it out, he was being nice to the chef since Kiru and Teshi knew the man, and also they encouraged him to get a finer taste of other styles of cuisines from around the UEF.

He knew he'd eventually run into people who might have a much more robust sense of tastes and he decided to accept the invitation to dine with his two Japanese officers, he in truth learnt that sometimes honesty is better. As he dug into the Japanese style like meal, he noticed that Miyafuji was looking on in anticipation.

There was also the noticeable gaze of Sakamoto who was busy eyeing him from the corner of his vision; he knew that she'd probably slice him to pieces if he said anything to upset Miyafuji. As he tucked into the fish, Perrine was watching him wolf down the food at an alarming speed, or at least in her opinion.

Sheppard's inhuman level of speed gave him the effect that he was just rushing through food at an alarming speed; in all honesty that's how he always eats since his digestive system burns through energy really quickly. Perrine watched this in a look of horror as he finished his second helping of rice.

The girl said in a tone of shock and disgust.  
"Colonel Sheppard you truly live up to your name, I can't imagine how your people tolerate such level of savagery." She said with an air of supposition.

Sheppard knew she was prodding at him intentionally, he learnt from one officer about people who act in such a prudent way, they tend to aim to antagonize people. He knew better than to goad her into an argument, but he refrained and replied calmly.  
"If you wish to argue over manners, then I can safely say you're barking up the wrong tree." He stated with a snide grin.

She turned her eyes back to him in a sharp glare but didn't say anything, he turned his attention away from Perrine and looked over to Miyafuji who was collecting his bowls, and he managed to eat faster than any of the other girls. They were still in the midst of eating; well at least those who haven't been watching him eat.

As he finished up his meal, he said to Miyafuji.  
"Thanks for the meal, it was pleasant." He said in a grateful fashion before wiping his mouth with a napkin.

Miyafuji's face lit up and she blushed while replying.  
"Ah thank you Sheppard."

"Yeah, well at least that was the only food I've had in a while that didn't come out of a ration pack, field kitchen or a box meal." He said with a sigh of satisfaction.

Hartmann who was steadily eating her rice inquired with a mouthful. "What kind of foods do you usually eat?"

Sheppard tried to recall some of the foods he had over his military career both in and off duty, he had a lot of tastes, and he sampled stuff that'd probably make all kinds of foods from Earth look like fast food. "Plenty of stuff, I got to eat a Tava coffee cakes, Mosian cream cakes, Verinian lean steaks, also a Maraline mousse glister cake, probably the most over indulgent piece of pastry in the entire Milky Way Galaxy." He said in a nonchalant fashion, he then noticed that the girls had paused since he had been listing all the foods.

Lucchini was busy drooling on Shirley's shoulder whilst Hartmann dreamily drooled next to Gertrud who sat passively in her seat with a look of intrigue on her face. The others had a few looks of interest, and Shirley was trying to figure out what most of the foods he spoke of even looked like.

Miyafuji who was clearing the table with Lynnette also seemed piqued by what Sheppard had listed, imagined what would look like a bunch of squiggles and oddly shaped buns, she really couldn't think of what kind of food would look like what Sheppard described. It was Eila who asked.  
"So there are lots of kind's foods out there?"

"Yeah pretty much, just don't ask for anything from Telios, they usually make mass produced goods which taste like blocks of gruel, not something people would really want to be eating." He replied recalling his memory of being stationed on the Vegan expanse, not a particularly interesting bit of his career.

He cleared his throat before asking them.  
"Anyone feel like going out for a bit of fresh air?" He said in a thoughtful tone.

The girls shared a look between each other, Miyafuji answered first with.  
"Sorry I've got to clean the dishes."

"And I'd like to help Yoshika." Lynnette added.

He nodded in understanding.  
"Sure that's fine. How about you girls?" He asked in the general direction of Lucchini and Shirley.

The buxom red head replied with a stretch of her back as she got out of her chair. "I'm good for some air."

Lucchini yawned out wearily.  
"I'll go nap…" She stretched her arms and rolled her neck before she exited the room.

Sanya who was awake said.  
"I'd like to go outside; I'm usually on the night patrol, so I can join you." She said with a small smile that could probably give any other man a heart attack, he'd have to remember to send Rodney down here to meet Sanya.

However Sanya's presence with Sheppard compelled Eila to interject hastily.  
"I'm coming along as well." She gave Sheppard the evil eye before turning her attention back to Sanya who was leaning to Sheppard's side.

Eila looked a little 'pissed' in Sheppard's opinion, he wasn't sure, maybe because she had a thing for Sanya, he really didn't care much about relationships unless it was related to himself, or if it might relate to something under his jurisdiction, he knew past history of UEFF personnel having relationships between one another had caused reforms for the UEFF to enable relationships to be permitted as long as it was accounted for.

Sheppard hadn't much luck in terms of relationships; he usually let the UEFF psych officers to deal with the affairs of people under his command. As he turned his attention over to Minna, Mio who were at the other end parallel to Gertrud and Hartmann, Hartmann raised her hand.  
"Do you have any sweets you talked about?" She asked with a grin.

Gertrud threw Hartmann a look of annoyance and then face palmed. His heightened sense of hearing caught the girl muttering. "Mein Gott…"

Sheppard did an internal inventory from within his neural interface and checked if he had something sweet, he found he had some chocolate rations in his fighter, he never really ate chocolate during most of his operations, he never felt like eating as much as other people who usually indulged in the food when they got the chance.

He never recalled the reason for not eating chocolate since he was brought back to life, he knew it had something to do with some condition he agreed to with someone but his death had stripped parts of his memory afterwards. He hoped it wasn't anything too important. He cleared his throat before addressing them once more.  
"If you want I can give you the sweets later."

Hartmann's face brightened almost immediately.  
"Really?" She looked as though stars were going to burst all around her.

Gertrud simply face palmed and said.  
"I'm going along…"

Mio gave Gertrud a perturbed look before she added.  
"I'll come along, I don't have too much to do for tonight."

Perrine who Sheppard saw as a deep admirer of Mio hastily added.  
"I shall join you as well, I do like the open air of Britannia during the night, and it's u-uh refreshing!" She exclaimed before she added a nervous laugh.

Eila made a snide remark.  
"It's because you want to make sure Sakamoto doesn't ditch you." Eila sniggered.

Perrine's face had two red blushes before she angrily retorted.  
"That's not for you to care Eila…" She gave the girl the evil eye before Eila simply continued to snigger.

Sheppard could see the relationship between these girls was one which had a lot of love and hate between them; this was definitely going to be an interesting night. He looked over to Minna who was still considering the offer; she decided to give him her response.  
"Sorry, I'm afraid I can't join you and the girls tonight, I do have a lot of paperwork to complete before tonight and I'm sure that your ship's arrival would direct attention to our base."

Sheppard gave a curt head nod.  
"Of course." He clapped his hands and stood up.  
"Well let's get going ladies." He gestured to the exit.

The girls exited the room more or less in the same fashion, Mio took to walking besides Sheppard, at first he waited for Mio to make conversation, but it took a while as he was distracted by Gertrud and Hartmann who were both in their own discussion which happened to be heard across the hallway. It seemed Gertrud was continually scolding Hartmann on the proper military conduct of herself.

He imagined Hartmann didn't particularly mind much about such conduct or she'd be a lot more disciplined, or like one of those triple OS's, he recalled how much trouble they tended to cause for UEFF troops when off duty. He smiled inwardly at the thought of Hartmann ending up like that, but Gertrud was definitely acting closer to such a person.

(3 O's refer to this: over worked, over sexed, over promoted…)

He just hoped that her time with these girls loosened her attitude, as they passed down another stone corridor to the exit; he finally had a chance to ask Mio.  
"Major Sakamoto, I do hope your evaluation of my personality is within your acceptable parameters." He said nonchalantly.

She gave him a short glance before turning her attention back to the corridor.  
"Of course, I've seen quite a bit about you… and I have to say you've got quite the personality. One which should suit someone from Liberion."

"Well that might be biological, but for the most part, I do have my quirks." He said to her as they strode into the open grounds of the base.

It was then he noted that Shirley had moved alongside him.  
"So can I assume that you two are talking about each other?" She inquired in a cheery tone.

"Not really, just determining what's in store for the future." Mio said in a nonchalant fashion.

"Pretty much." Sheppard finished.

Shirley raised her eye, she didn't entirely buy it, but she didn't pry. She turned her attention back to Sheppard and asked him.  
"In your reality, world, something… did you ever enjoy driving?"

Sheppard recalled his time back in the States when he used to drive around in his Ford Mustang, and also he did enjoy the benefit of driving in a number of races with his brother and friends during his late college years. "Yeah, I got a lot of time in vehicles, I own a Ford Mustang back on my ship."

"Really? A Mustang? Why is there a car named after the P-51 Mustang?" She asked in curiously.

Sheppard remembered the history, there was a lot about it but he summarised.  
"Some fella back in the States who liked Mustang's was a stylist for Ford, so he created the designs for the car and well the name just stuck." He summarised as best he could.

Shirley gave him a look at the vague response, but accepted it.  
"Right, well how good is your Mustang?" She asked him with an intrigued tone.

Sheppard had to think over his Mustang.  
"Uh, well mines a bit unique as you can imagine." He scratched the back of his head.

"Seeing what you've been capable of, that's not hard to believe." Shirley admitted.

"Yeah, well all I can say is that my old girl's been with me since the 90s never needed a better car." He smiled as he stated his pride aloud.

"So, I guess that joy riding would be possible some time later?" Shirley asked enthusiastically.

Sheppard thought it over, he really didn't see much of a problem, and Shirley seemed like she'd enjoy a ride in his Mustang, he was just worried about if the other would try joining in. He hated to admit it, but his mustang wasn't built in with better seats for extra passengers. As the group strode out into the grounds, Sheppard kept his eyes locked onto the stars above.

He knew that the fleet was likely to make its arrival above the planet soon enough, he also knew that once they arrived, things would get busy around here, and maybe a lot more nosier. He the foreknowledge that anti-grav generators wouldn't leave with a too great a wake, he didn't think locals would like to find the roofs of their homes missing when they woke up from the tremendous atmospheric pressure of massive warships entering the airspace.

As they followed the path through the grounds to a nearby garden, Sheppard noticed Sanya next to Shirley, she was speaking with Eila about something, he didn't eavesdrop, but he could tell that they were having a discussion about him, since they kept glancing in his general direction. He let them continue their talk in peace, but as they arrived at the garden, Mio noticed something.

"Huh… so that's where she went." She muttered to herself.

Sheppard looked in the direction of which Mio was staring out, he noticed that Lucchini had decided to nest herself in the branches of a large tree within the garden; she was sleeping on a flag like blanket of her country. He decided to ask Shirley.  
"Does Lucchini usually sleep in trees, or does she move from place to place?" He asked with intrigue.

Shirley who noticed the sleeping youth in the tree sniggered silently before she replied in a quiet tone.  
"Yeah, that's pretty normal for Lucchini; she's got a knack for being found in the most interesting places, she naps around here and in the hangar at time, also in my workshop when she wanders in." Shirley grinned.

"So, I'm guessing that no one bothers to tuck her in often?" He asked Shirley as they finally reached the middle of the garden.

"Nah, there's really not much of a point, Lucchini doesn't like being tucked in very often, and also she hates being both too hot and too cold." Shirley said with a shrug.

"Huh, where does she go when winter comes?" He asked Shirley whilst keeping his eye on the sleeping girl.

"Well she does have a room, and during winter she does use it from time to time, but the workshop and hangar are usually heated, well there and the living room in the base." Shirley replied recalling of Lucchini's sleeping spots.

"Huh…" Sheppard thoughtfully muttered as he thought of his most awkward sleeping spots back on Atlantis.

As the girls along with Sheppard found a spot to sit down, Sheppard asked them girls.  
"So, any of you girls ever wonder what space is like?" He said in a mildly humoured tone.

The girls looked amongst themselves; Shirley seemed to have an idea.  
"Space itself is supposed to be empty, and without Earth's gravity, I'm pretty sure anyone who went up there would be weightless."

"Your right on, but there's also the fact that, there's no air up there, also the vacuum of space would snap freeze you in a matter of a minute." Sheppard added thoughtfully.

The girls really didn't need the mental image; Mio gave him a slightly disapproving look, but let him continue. "Space is vast, heck even us from your alternate reality future haven't even completely comprehended how vast it can get, we're still exploring it and we've barely covered anything yet."

"Wow that's… big." Hartmann perplexed.

"I think I'm more comfortable staying on the Earth." Barkhorn added with a twinge of uncertainty about what might be up there in the vastness.

"Ah it's not always like that, when you go up there, you can see further than anywhere else, the stars above are so beautiful, you'd think that you were sitting in the middle of the universe looking at it moving around you." He said in a melancholy tone.

He remembered how long it had been since he was on Earth looking up at the night time skies; how the night calmed his heart, the past decade in service as part of the military had been some of the best and worst years of his life. But the stars never seemed to change when he looked up at them; he recalled how much he loved to drink with his comrades during stakeouts.

Ford who used to sneak in a few beers into their stakeout, Kenmore the humanised wraith who joined the expedition used to always cook on an open fire, Carson their head medical practitioner who sang songs with the group. There were so many faces he recalled from the first years he spent at Atlantis.

So many of those very faces he had seen go by, before he knew it, he, Teyla, Ronin, and McKay were all that were left of the original members of the Atlantis Expedition. His mind was brought back with the feeling of Sanya who was tugging on his arm. The silver haired girl had a curios look on her face.  
"Is there something wrong Colonel?" She asked in a quiet voice.

Sheppard replied aptly.  
"Nothing's wrong I'm just reminiscing on older times."

Sanya gave him a perplexed look at him, Eila was the one who broke the moment of silence.  
"Hey Sheppard, you said that you were from an alternate world or whatever, was there anything about us?" Eila asked him with a curious tone.

Sheppard was prepared for this sort of question, he was actually expecting it from the time they had their little meeting, and he thought they would have asked him sooner.  
He replied carefully, he knew that telling them too much of their counterpart's might cause problems. "Well I can say that many of you did live in my reality, albeit you weren't actually females, except Sanya if I recall, you all seem to share some resemblance to members of our world's fighter pilot aces. And technically speaking it's been a long time since the end of the Second World War, many of you would have passed away in our timeline." He said honestly as he could.

Eila seemed to understand. "Oh, so I guess we were all there together?"

Sheppard did know of a lot of history about the fighter pilots, and since he did have a number of historical bits of knowledge in built as part of his encyclopaedia, he had a fair idea of what happened to majority of their counterparts. He replied in a slightly awkward tone.  
"You could say that…" He was unsure if he should tell them that almost all of their counterparts had either been killed in action or had died of old age.

But he decided to hold onto that bit until Carter arrived, she was a bit more versed in talking to other women, Sheppard's track record wasn't as good and to be honest he's had more crazy ex's than he'd like to admit thanks to his past. He hoped that this wouldn't become a problem here as well.

The girls enjoyed the moment of peace outside, Sheppard's took the time to think about something a friend of his said to him before their departure, well technically it was another woman that Sheppard had in his life, who as much as he liked to recall, he really couldn't remember who she was.

"We live without regrets, because we die with our regrets." He heard it from the woman whom he was close to.

He really couldn't recall the woman's name since she was part of his life just prior to his little incident which had him turned into a part living machine. But he was humbled by those words; he figured that if she had left such a profound impact in his life, there must have been others as well.

Eila didn't press any further questions, but Hartmann who seemed to spark an idea in her head asked from where she and Barkhorn were seated.  
"Hey Sheppard, what's your world like?" She asked with interest.

Sheppard looked over to her with a raised eyebrow.  
"Why the sudden interest into my reality?" He asked her back.

"Well you've got all that fancy tech, and you did all those awesome stuff, things must be really different in the future you come from." She replied with a smile.

Sheppard knew that girls who gave him a cute look tended to pry something out of him, be it intentionally or unintentionally. "That's something I can't tell you about, your world has its differences, but even so, knowing about certain things about the future can have adverse effects on the timeline. Also I'm sure that Carter, my well colleague won't look upon this too well." He said with a sheepish grin knowing full well that Carter would bite his head off.

"Awww…" Hartman moaned with a look of disappointment.

Barkhorn then lectured the younger officer over acting childish. Sheppard felt a bead of sweet form on his head before turning back his focus of attention to Mio who had been sitting crossed legged on the grass nearby. She seemed to be meditating, her katana was besides her, and at the moment she looked very calm.

Sheppard looked up to the skies once more and cracked his neck; he knew it was any moment before the fleet arrived. As if on cue, he saw it. A smile creeped onto his face as he announced.  
"Hey girls, you're in for a treat tonight." He said happily.

The girls seemed to wonder what he meant by his statement, but they noticed he was still looking into the skies, they themselves turned their attention upwards, and even Mio who had been meditating, broke away and turned to look upwards. Her magical eye piercing through the darkness above began to search for what Sheppard was looking at.

She really didn't need to look hard since it was right in orbit.

XXXXX

It was about 10 at night when the fleet arrived in orbit over Earth; Sheppard had time to emplace a single beacon in geosynchronous orbit before coming down. The fleet had the marker signal and locked onto the jump coordinates. The 13 ships arrived in the wake of their hyperspace windows closing.

As each ship sat in the shadow of the blue planet, their silhouettes blending with the darkness of space, no one would have been able to see them unless they were directly looking at them, and of course if they had augmented eyes or had a magical eye. The fleet held in a formation in orbit before Carter who had been aboard the Arcturus decided to switch to something less intimidating.

Carter was on the Daedalus, and as much as it was still over a kilometre long, it was less daunting to hide than that of the Arcturus which would nearly block out the sun over a fair region since it was incredibly large, and very difficult to hide in the atmosphere, unless they activated the cloak. But Carter wasn't going to waste time and energy with using the cloaking fields unless they absolutely had to.

Carter sighed, she already knew that it would have been pointless either way, Sheppard had gone ahead of her and introduced himself to the locals, though he had done so in a fashion which wouldn't cause too much culture shock. And surely having a fleet of ships coming down from space wouldn't look too good for first impressions.

Carter was going down in just the Daedalus to meet with the Commander of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, Commander Minna; she memorized what Sheppard had informed her since the meeting. He had been kind enough to continue tid bits of information as things developed, as per his usual haphazard fashion of sending information, she had to do a bit of editing to get a clearer picture of the people Sheppard had met.

At the moment she was intrigued by the whole thing, it seemed that people on this world had something of value in terms of development, of course magic seemed like a load of nonsense to her. She usually didn't admit it, but she was more methodical in her reasoning and thinking, she of course did have intuition which she fell back upon when she trusted within those under her command, or when an uncertain situation was yet to be determined.

The magical and mythical elements of the universe really didn't seem something which she wanted to focus upon since she herself had encountered things which weren't magical but simply far more complicated or far more advanced than her level of understanding. Those were the few things which she simply accepted were part of the overall universe.

Her train of thought was broken as she stepped passed the entrance into the ship. "General Carter, welcome aboard." Captain Caldwell greeted her with a stern look and salute.

Carter saluted back.  
"Steven you know that's not really necessary anymore, I trust you enough to just greet me informally." She replied with a grin.

Caldwell relaxed his stance and nodded. "Right, well old habits die hard." He said aptly.

They broke from the cross section and moved through the hallway to the bridge.  
"We're going to be descending onto Sheppard's location I want to make this clear, we don't want to spook the locals, so we're going to land a bit further from the base. Also keeping in mind, the locals haven't encountered before teleportation technology so me; Eli, Cassandra, and Jonathan along with two marines are going down via shuttle." She stated plainly.

"Understood, though when you meant Jonathan, you aren't referring to…" Caldwell assumed, but Carter confirmed his suspicion.

"Yes, I'm taking O'Neill for a bit, I'm sure Delta can handle themselves without him for the night." Carter stated.

Caldwell sighed. "Are you sure you really want to take Jonathan for something like this? I thought he'd be more preoccupied with dealing with training his newest members of his team." The old officer said in a perplexed tone.

"He's been cooped up for the past month, besides where else will he get the chance to enjoy himself? And also because I thought he wouldn't mind spending time with some new people." Carter commented in a confident fashion.

Caldwell won't argue that point, since O'Neill had volunteered to be part of the Delta Task Force which was assigned to the Daedalus; it was funny thinking about how many years it had been since the young man had joined the expedition. As they reached the hangar bay, Carter was greeted by the sounds of crewmen talking amongst themselves.

"Hasn't changed since I was here." Carter stated as they entered into the hangar bay.

Work crews wandered around the bays with tools and parts in hand, mechanical arms moving pieces of equipment and gear from place to place, the sound of machinery running, and the distinct smell of oil, metal and smoke drifting in and around the hangar bay. Sam caught sight of her shuttle on a pad below.

She went with Caldwell down to the hangar bay; their presence was noticed by many of the crew and engineers working around the clock. She also noted the familiar faces of Jonathan who was busy securing his webbing to his body. The young man hadn't changed in the years since he was created.

To explain the origins of Jonathan O'Neill, he was created by an Asgard named Loki who believed that Jack O'Neill was the means to saving their race, of course this was proven inconclusive and it was only a year later when the UCAF created a stable gene structure for the Asgard was their problem resolved.

But the by-product of Loki's experiments had left them with an unstable clone that quickly deteriorated in health; he was saved thanks to the quick thinking of the UCAF and another Asgard Thor. Jonathan being as young as he was had the knowledge of Jack O'Neill and all of his experiences had been offered the position to continue his life as part of the SGC.

Jonathan decided to accept the position and continued on as part of a separate force within the SGC until the attack led by Anubis in late 2003, he was officially recognised as part of the O'Neill family and he spent most of his time in his own division until the start of the Atlantis Expedition began, afterwards he remained actively as part of the Expedition as a special task force for rapid deployments.

Carter remembered how many times he and Sheppard had fought over things, also gotten into trouble with causing problems, Sheppard had a tendency to look for trouble while Jonathan tended to start trouble. But nonetheless, Jonathan was pretty much Jack in a nutshell, well psychologically, but he had a few changes.

Being younger had a slight effect on his mental development, and being the soldier that he is, he seemed humbled by the thought of being sent to serve for a while longer. Carter smiled at the times he had been around with his team mates. Jonathan had a different aspect compared to Jack, he was enjoying the years of his life he really never enjoyed in the past.

Carter reached a nearby service lift and stepped in with Caldwell, they reached the ground in a few moments, and the delegation was almost complete, Carter greeted the group with a warm smile on her face.  
"Good evening boys and girls."

Jon and Eli who were both looking over some game footage that Eli had obtained prior to their departure from their reality changed their posture; Eli switched his PSP to pause and stashed it into his pocket while Jon greeted Carter in his usual fashion.  
"Carter, it's been a while hasn't it?" He grinned as he held out a hand.

Carter grasped Jon's hand and shook it, replying in turn.  
"Yeah, that's the trouble with being the military commander back at Atlantis, there's always something to do."

"Can't imagine how frustrating that can get." Jon replied curtly with a shrug.

Cassandra was the next to greet Carter, though she was less formal and more emotional about her greeting.  
"Aunt…" She said as she hugged Carter.

"It's been too long Cassie…" She broke the hug and asked the young doctor. "How's being chief medical officer on the Daedalus feel?" She asked the young woman.

Cassandra's expression changed slightly, she said in a nonchalant fashion.  
"It's been keeping me busy." She smiled.

"Good to see that you've settled down." Carter replied.

Eli cut in.  
"Sorry to be a buzz, but I think we've entered into the atmosphere." He said as he pointed out of the hangar bay containment fields.

They could see that they were indeed passing through the atmosphere of the planet, Caldwell who had been just behind informed them.  
"We're approaching the bay where the 501st base is located, eta 2 minutes. Carter I'll see you around." Steven said with a curt salute before he headed back to the nearby lift.

Carter wished for a few more minutes, but sadly that wasn't going to be available for them at the moment. Carter gestured to their transport, a large matte black transport which had two large wings which had adjusting engine drives, the Osprey MK-IIV Type 47 multi-purpose transport was ready to take off.  
"After you…" Carter said over the dull drone of the ion propulsion drives.

As they stepped into the side doors of the large transport, they were welcomed by the sight of two marines, both of whom came from the Daedalus; Jon seemed to know them as he greeted them. The marines nodded back and replied curtly before assuming their positions in the passenger compartment.

The shuttle waited for the signal to depart from the ship. Carter and other members of the small delegation chatted amongst themselves; they had caught up while waiting for Carter, but Carter had things to catch up with between them aside from Eli. It wasn't until the green light was given for their shuttle that they fell into some sort of silence.

Carter and her entourage eagerly waited for what was waiting for them at the base, this was surely going to be an interesting first contact that was for sure.

XXXXX

Location: Britannia- Dover

Time: 10:04 PM

Sheppard and co who had been watching the arrival of the UEFF Arcturus fleet were definitely surprised, though only those who had good eye sight could have noticed the slight shimmer, but it wasn't the arrival of the fleet that the girls were interested in. It was the large ship which was making its descent to the planet.

The large shadow of the Daedalus seemed to darken the cove slightly; thankfully not enough to make everything pitch black, but it still left a noticeable silhouette which alerted a number of nearby towns and home guard who had been nearby. Thankfully all reports were being answered as part of a confidential matter and that it was being handled by the 501st.

As the ship made its touchdown in the cove, the ship kept itself within only 1 meter within the water to avoid causing a tidal wave, the anti-grav generators and kinetic fields also helped to disperse the effect of the ship's arrival. Back at the base, the girls gathered at the hangar bay, Sheppard was with them, his helmet was semi-active, and he was sending his signal through his suit's coms to inform the Daedalus that it was safe to send Carter and her selected delegates.

Out in the cold air of the night the members of the 501st stood in the front of the hangar, all of them kept their eyes trained on the large vessel which now occupied the cove, all of the girls had either the look of amazement or controlled passiveness. The ship's hangar which was located portside opened up, allowing for the transport to depart from the ship.

Sheppard hoped that Carter's choice for representatives were who he thought they were, he knew Carter wouldn't chuck away a chance to get Jon down onto the planet, he had a long history with dealing with first contact scenarios. But there was also the fact that Carter trusted Jon not to do anything which might cause an incident to occur.

Eli was a given, he had the best mind suited for quick and clear observations of details, for machinery and technology, he had a knack for knowing these things, there was also the fact that Eli wasn't really good around many women, girls and well too many people in general. He tended to avoid openly drawing attention to himself, usually engrossing himself in games.

And of course from what Carter had forwarded from the Daedalus, Cassandra Frasier who had been assigned due to her past experiences as medical specialist back on Atlantis, she joined as a protégé thanks to her mother Janet Frasier, Carson Beckett had trained her since her admittance into the Atlantis Expedition which was an added bonus for the Expedition in Sheppard's eyes.

Cassandra was an experienced medical professional and she had the qualifications, she was also quite close to Beckett prior to his death in 2007. Those melancholy memories seemed to welcome him as well as sting at him, he shrugged the thoughts out of his head as the Osprey finally arrived at the base.

Its matte black chassis was outlined by the moonlight which shone from above, but the transport was practically invisible in the night time skies, as its VTOL engines folded, the girls stood amazed at such a machine as it was the first that they had ever seen. As the doors to the side of the transport opened, two marines stepped out, both saluted to Sheppard before doing a quick visual scan before letting the others exit from the transport.

Carter was the next to step out, her blonde hair knotted in a ponytail behind her head, her uniform was neat, and somewhat unsuited since it was just her flight uniform, rather than her formal officer uniform. She was greeted by Minna who had spent some time to send word of the Daedalus' arrival.

"Brigadier General Samantha Carter I presume?" Minna said in a welcoming fashion.

Carter held out her hand to shake Minna's and replied in a curt and equally welcoming fashion.  
"It's my pleasure to meet you."

Minna in turn said.  
"No it's the pleasure of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing to welcome you General; this is quite a history day." She said with a smile on her face.

Sheppard who stood behind Minna could only grin as he felt that things were definitely picking up. The future was undetermined, but there was one consonant, wherever there's goodwill, trouble tends to follow.

XXXXX

AN: For the moment this will have to do since I've got my hands tied with a lot of work at the moment, as for the next chapter, I'm going to start increasing numbers for the chapter length, I dunno how large next chapter will be, but it's probably going to be equal or larger.

Also would it be preferable if I begin making things more comedic or have the story focus more on character building and interaction between characters?


End file.
